


Love Belongs to All in Deed and Name

by knittycat99



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Character Study, College, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittycat99/pseuds/knittycat99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine hides from the world, keeps the broken pieces of himself a secret.  Or at least he does until a chance encounter with Kurt Hummel changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What began as a short character study of Blaine turned into a sweeping story of love and growing up. This one was inspired and midwifed by nubianamy.

Blaine knew all the tricks, all the signs. He wasn't good at a lot, but he  _was_  good at hiding. He'd had enough practice; he'd been doing it since he was so young that he didn't even have a clear memory  _of_  doing it. And that very first day, when he'd put on his best show face and taken the hand of the most ethereal-looking boy he'd ever seen, led him down the hall and into the cocoon of the Senior Commons and the Warblers,  _that_ was the first time he could remember his wall crumbling all on it's own.

Most of the time, Blaine had to take it down, brick by slowly revealed brick, only one or two at a time so that he could keep the deepest parts of himself buried away.

But the  _boy_. Blaine knew, at that first touch, that the boy was as broken and hidden as he was. That he was  _safe_. And then the look on his face when Blaine sang,  _I know you get me so I let my walls come down_ , it had gone straight to Blaine's core. And Blaine wondered, for the first time in his whole life, if it were possible that there was someone out there who wouldn't be afraid of the twisted parts of him.

* * *

There were lots of ways to be broken, and even more ways to try and fix yourself; you couldn't grow up a child of privilege, with the people and places that Blaine knew, and  _not_ know that. As if his own family weren't enough of an example, Blaine only had to look to the Finches next door, or half the boys in his cabin at that stupid preppy camp his parents had sent him to before Freshman year, beer in their footlockers and pot in their hiking packs. Blaine had spent the summer pretending, learning to gag down warm beer and mask his red-rimmed eyes by sitting too close to the nightly campfire, awkwardly holding hands with a quiet, mousy girl from their counterpart cabin and resisting the urge to seek sanctuary at the unused piano in the main barn. He'd known that if he couldn't fit in there, with those kids in their Exeter and Andover and St. Georges shirts, then he'd never fit in anywhere, and he _had_ to fit in.

He couldn't go home having failed at something so simple.

He hadn't failed, of course. He'd learned that pot made him more jittery than usual, so he made sure to stay away. He'd learned that beer tasted terrible but made him  _less_ jittery, less likely to be a complete loser in the social situations that scared him, so he used it perhaps a little more than he should have. He'd been the life of his cabin, always the first one with a joke or a witty retort, but ask any of those identically tanned and happy boys anything about the kid from Ohio and they wouldn't have been able to drudge up a single detail.

Blaine kind of liked it that way, because it meant he could try on lots of different personae.

But none of them felt real.

He thought that if he just kept morphing, adapting, then he'd stumble into the  _real_ Blaine Anderson.

He just didn't want to wait for him forever.

* * *

"I thought you were getting a better handle on your  _problem_ ," Blaine's father marched into the kitchen and dropped a tri-folded page with the Dalton crest on the letterhead next to Blaine's Cocoa Krispies. Blaine had to think for half a second about what problem his dad was talking about, but then it was staring up at him in 12-point print.

_Blaine is an intelligent, charming young man, a true leader in the classroom and in his extracurriculars. But his enthusiasm is sometimes disruptive in class, as Blaine has a tendency to express himself in situationally inappropriate ways._

Oh.  _That_ problem.

Blaine poked his spoon into his bowl, disturbing the bottom layer of cereal that had gone soggy in the scant half an inch of milk he'd poured, and leaned back in his chair.

"I'm working on it, Dad."

"Not hard enough, apparently." Blaine watched his father tuck the morning newspaper and a banana into his briefcase before he started on his coffee, splash of milk and half a Splenda. He eyed Blaine over the rim of his travel mug as he screwed on the lid. "I need you to work  _harder_  at it, Blaine. I know there's nothing we can do about your . . .  _other thing_ -"

"Me being gay, you mean?" Because god forbid his father actually  _admit_ that Blaine liked boys.

"Yes.  _That_. I know we can't change that, so I need you to change  _this._  You're too old, Blaine. You can't just behave that way and expect to get the things you deserve. You need to improve, to  _show_ everyone that you're worthy of their time and attention." His father swiped his keys from where they always sat, neatly next to his cell phone and the spare change he cleaned from his pockets at the end of every day. He glanced back at Blaine once before settling his hand on the doorknob. "I have late rounds tonight, and then your mother and I are having dinner with the Morris'."

"Okay." Blaine knew what that meant, a dinner of whatever he felt like, or whatever he scrounged together from what he could find in fridge or freezer, eaten alone at the kitchen table with a book for company.

He felt like a bad son, because he honestly  _preferred_  the company of a book to the judging silence of his parents, but he couldn't say that to his father, so he just nodded and watched his father slip out into his day. Blaine skimmed the top layer cereal, and popped a dry, crispy spoonful into his mouth before he pushed the bowl away. Then he reached for his phone, tapped a text to Kurt:  _meet for coffee before school?_

He didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until his reply tone chimed:  _on my way_.

* * *

Blaine was early. He was always, forever, compulsively early, trained young and properly by his exacting parents. Most of the time, he felt awkward about it because it usually left him waiting, alone and glaringly out of place. But being early for coffee with Kurt meant that he had an excuse to buy Kurt's nonfat Mocha and cranberry orange scone without it becoming a Thing between them. He doctored his coffee, light and just on the edge of too sweet, and picked at his own muffin while he waited for Kurt to slide through the door, perfect hair and his uniform fitting  _just so_ , and some kind of cream or lotion or aftershave that lingered just enough in any space he occupied to send Blaine sniffing the air at even a hint of it left behind in the hall or a vacant classroom. Once he was there, the deep blue of his sweater lighting up his eyes and his hands moving delicately through the air telling a story about his latest eBay find, Blaine found that he was more relaxed than he'd been since leaving Kurt in the Dalton parking lot the previous evening.

He kept watching Kurt's hands, breaking off pieces of his scone, cupped around his coffee, twirling a coffee stirrer over and under his fingers in a practiced motion. He bit back the urge to reach out and  _touch_ even though he wanted to. Wanted to feel that grace seep into him, because maybe if he could be close to Kurt like that he'd stop being such a spaz himself.

"My parents won't be home for dinner tonight," he finally blurted out, like it was a confession.

Kurt's eyes lit up, bright and brilliant blue made stronger by his sweater. "We should do something, then. It's Wednesday."

Like there was something special or different about Wednesdays that Blaine didn't understand, so he just tilted his head and raised an eyebrow and waited.

Kurt nodded at him, and smiled lightly. "It's free-for-all night at my house. Dad plays cards with his friends, Carole has book club or knitting, and I'm not sure what Finn does, I think maybe family dinner at Rachel's."

Blaine watched his eyes drift, like he was thinking about something, until his gaze caught on the dog-eared paperback peeking out of Blaine's bag. Blaine shifted in his chair, reached his hand out to shove the book farther in, to let it be swallowed by History and Trig and The Scarlet Letter, but Kurt stops him.

"What are you reading?" His voice was gentle, and Blaine knew that he should be ashamed for picking something no high school student would be caught with, but he'd needed the escape of an old favorite. He picked the slim volume up and placed it on the table, and watched while Kurt ran his hand over the cover.

"The Giver," he whispered, fingering the places where the pages were bent and wrinkled. "I read it the summer after my mom died."

Blaine blinked, because he hadn't read it until middle school, and even then it had been hard, emotional going on his best days.

"Don't look at me like that. I was always reading above myself."

"But- didn't it  _hurt_?" Because the first reading had hurt Blaine, made him breathless and sad and aching for Jonas and all of his burdens.

Kurt's face went kind of distant then, for the briefest of moments, before turning back to him with clarity. "Yes, but it was  _good_ hurt." And then Blaine could see how desperate Kurt was for him to understand, could feel it in the warm touch of those graceful fingers on his wrist, just at the edge of sleeve of his blazer where the liner stopped and an eighth of an inch of scratchy wool left his skin irritated. "Sometimes the things that hurt can be good for you."

Blaine didn't want to think about that; he just wanted to keep feeling Kurt's fingers on his skin, because they tethered him, kept him present. Kept him  _real_. He breathed into Kurt's touch. "So what are we going to do tonight?"

Kurt smiled at him and tapped the cover of the book with his finger. "Take-out, whatever you want. And then I'm going to read to you."

* * *

Blaine  _knew_ it wasn't a date. It  _couldn't_  be a date, because Kurt was simply the best and most honest friend Blaine had ever had, but Blaine had also never felt so intimate with anyone as he did with Kurt, sitting on opposite corners of his bed eating Chinese take-out from cardboard containers while Kurt read The Giverin his flawless voice.

It was silly. It was child-like. Blaine felt like he should be embarrassed, because  _being_ read to had been something he'd lost so young, but he'd never stopped craving it. Kurt's voice was smooth, steady, even as he reached the scene that never failed to leave Blaine shaky and breathless, when Jonas first understands what happens at the House of the Old.

Blaine drew in a ragged breath, and Kurt paused in his reading, looking over the edge of the book at him. "You okay?"

Blaine knew he had the lie in him, but he couldn't tell it. Not to Kurt. He shook his head. "This scene. The first time, it was so  _shocking_. I almost think it's worse, now, because I _know_ what happens."

Kurt shifted, stretched his legs and pressed his sock-clad foot against the outside of Blaine's thigh. Blaine leaned into the contact gently, because they were  _very careful_  about touching each other. Blaine knew that touch scared Kurt, after everything with Karofsky. And honestly, Blaine didn't know how to offer it in any way at all, so they sort of danced around it most of the time. But every once in a while, when they each had some chinks in their brickwork, they managed something like  _this_.

And damn, it felt  _amazing_.

"Why do you keep coming back to this book?" Kurt had turned it, pages down, on the perfectness of Blaine's bed, and Blaine resisted the urge to reach his finger out and run it over the broken spine.

"I had to read it for school, the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I was still in public school then, I'm not really sure why. Because none of the kids in the neighborhood go to public school. But anyway, my father wanted me to finish my summer reading right after school let out." Blaine shook his head at the memory, of his father checking his progress every night to make sure the work was getting done. "He's got that perfectionist thing going on, you know?"

Kurt nodded. Blaine had only brought Kurt over a handful of times when his dad was home, because Kurt was exactly the kind of boy Blaine's father disapproved of, the kind of boy who made him disapprove of Blaine just a little more, too.

"I saved this one for last." Blaine remembered the stack of books, piled neatly on the edge of his desk with their accompanying worksheets, everything finished and filled in by the last week of June. Except for The Giver. He remembered his father's nightly frown, and the light thrill Blaine got from trying to buck at his father's orders. It was the first time he'd overtly disobeyed his father, and it was the first time in his memory that he'd felt like he had any control over his world.

By Fourth of July, it was a silent battle, and Blaine held his ground against the taking away of his tv and video game privileges and weekend trips to the country club pool. He held out until the hottest part of August, because school was going to start soon and he didn't have a choice. So one brilliant blue morning he'd crossed the dewy grass and flopped into the hammock, and grudgingly opened the stiff cover that had been taunting him all summer.

And he'd fallen.

From the first page, he'd  _understood_. It wasn't so far for him to go, really, to see how living his father's life was just like Jonas living in a world where someone else controlled everything about you. As he devoured page after page, he'd started to know that there  _were_  choices to be had, risks to take. That there was  _more_ than what he'd always known.

When he'd finally reached the end, the imagined cold and snow disappearing into brilliant sun, he turned back to the beginning and started again.

He smiled at the memory, and looked into Kurt's gentle, beautiful face. "This is the book that made me love to read. It was the first time I got lost."

Kurt nodded, and reached a tentative finger out to rest on the back of Blaine's hand. "You know that you don't have to be perfect for me, right?"

Blaine gulped. "I didn't- I wasn't-" He didn't really understand what Kurt was telling him, because they'd just been talking about a  _book_.

"I know. There's a lot you didn't tell me, but I  _understand_ , Blaine. You don't have to be any way with me. Just you."

Blaine put his hand out and pulled the book towards him. He didn't know what to say, or even how to be, because he didn't even know  _who_ he was. He picked the book up and smiled at Kurt. "Why don't I read, and you can listen for a while?"

* * *

Kurt had been sort of silent and more than a little distant in the half-week since Blaine had gotten him to sing "Baby, It's Cold Outside"; at first, he'd thought it had everything to do with Mr. Schuester's visit, but when Blaine slipped in next to him in the cafeteria line and tried to pin him down about coming to the show, Kurt had just snapped at him, slammed a bowl of tapioca onto his tray, and wheeled away. Blaine watched him go, watched him squeeze a chair between David and Thad, and watched him shoot daggers at Blaine while he stabbed at his lunch.

And Blaine felt both stupid and entirely oblivious because he had  _no freaking clue_ what he'd done.

_Oh, well, Anderson. It isn't the first time. It won't be the last_.

But the distance he was feeling from Kurt was uncomfortable, and it was made worse every time Blaine brushed his hand against the cool softness of Kurt's Christmas present, wrapped and carefully set in his locker, every time he changed out his books between classes. When the last bell before vacation rang at 3 pm, Blaine grabbed the package and dashed through the crowded halls to Kurt's locker, hoping to catch him, but he was already gone.

Crap.

Blaine felt frantic with energy, the absolute  _need_  he had to try and make things right as best he could. He took the broad stone steps at the front of the building two at a time, and scanned the parking lot for the hulking shape of Kurt's Navigator.  _There_ , his brain screamed as his eyes caught it, and Kurt's very dark silhouette leaning against the front grille. His pea coat was unbuttoned, and even after a full day of classes his shirt was perfectly tucked and his sweater was pristine. He was  _lovely_ , and Blaine wasn't sure what to do with  _that_ feeling at all, because he and Kurt were just friends and he couldn't stand to push Kurt away because of the stupid way he always was when he felt  _too much_.

Blaine felt like a whirlwind, darting through people and cars because he simply  _had_ to be in Kurt's space, absorb the feel of him into his frayed nerves. He pulled up in front of Kurt, and pushed the package out awkwardly.

"I'm glad I caught you. Merry Christmas."

Kurt turned the package over in his hands, and eyed Blaine cautiously before reaching into his own bag for a small rectangular something, neatly wrapped in sparkly silver paper with white snowflakes. "Merry Christmas, Blaine." Kurt's voice was sad tinged with hope, and it sent Blaine reeling with words.

"I'm sorry, Kurt. I'm not sure, I don't know- I mean."  _Breathe, Anderson. Breathe and try again._ "I didn't mean to make you upset. I- I really liked singing with you."

Kurt ran a finger cautiously over the taped edges of the wrapping paper. "I liked singing with you, too. We sing well, together."

Blaine nodded, and moved a little closer in to Kurt's space. "I really like you, Kurt. But I- God. I'm kind of a mess when it comes to things like this, and I don't want to lose you as a friend. I just- I don't know how to  _do_ anything except be your friend."

Kurt pushed himself up off the Nav, so that he was not quite touching Blaine anywhere, but Blaine could  _feel_ him, and it was electric. "Let's just do that, then. Be friends." Kurt turned his head and blinked, and Blaine knew but didn't want to believe that he'd made Kurt cry. Kurt took a light, shaky breath, and when he turned back his eyes were clear. "I can be your friend, Blaine," he said with startling but resigned conviction. "Now. You first." He nodded at the package Blaine was holding.

It was thin-ish, pliable. Blaine popped the corner of tape on the edge and unwrapped carefully, smoothing the creased edges of paper on his knee. It was a brand-new, pristine copy of The Giver. "Open it," Kurt whispered, still in his space. Blaine flipped to the title page, where there was an inscription that made Blaine blink a few times because he didn't understand.

"I contacted her," Kurt said, nodding to the page. "Sent it, and she signed it."

Blaine didn't think, just threw his arms around Kurt, held him tight and close. "Thank you.  _Thankyouthankyouthankyou_ ," he repeated, over and over into Kurt's ear around the scent he knew only as  _Kurt_ and the fast beating of both of their hearts through layers of cotton and wool. When Blaine felt Kurt's arms around him, hugging back, he thought maybe he'd never been so at home, anywhere.

"I lo-" he started to say, and then stopped, pulled back, because he  _wanted_  and he was such a damn  _mess_  all the time, and he could hear his father's disapproving voice,  _you don't even know how to be a real friend, you can't be around a boy without wanting him, without being_ _ **deviant**_  and his own fears echoing back at him,  _you're not okay, this isn't right, you can't_ _ **do**_ _this, not to Kurt_.

But when he looked,  _really_  looked at Kurt and saw openness and want and something else soft and gentle in his eyes, Blaine wondered if he was really as bad and wrong as he felt all the time. Because he knew in that moment that Kurt loved him, and if  _Kurt_ could feel that, then maybe he wasn't some terrible  _thing_.

Kurt put an arm around his waist, easy, like they'd been doing things like that forever, and Blaine had to fight not to pull away. "It's okay, Blaine. Friends. We don't have to be anything else to each other."

"Open your package," he uttered with a shaky voice, and he took a calming step back to give Kurt space to unwrap his gift. He was giddy with it, and it made Blaine smile to watch him tear into the paper, leaving little shards of it from the places Blaine had gone a little overboard with the tape scattered on the cement of the parking lot. When the paper was gone and Kurt was digging his hands into the soft folds of the most amazing scarf Blaine had been able to find, Blaine had to touch him again. He took the scarf, wide with all these intricate raised patterns, and unfolded it so that he could wrap it around Kurt's neck. He smiled when Kurt buried his face into the softness.

"It smells like you," he said, almost in wonderment.

"It's been in my room for over a month."

"Mmmm. I  _love_ it. I'll wear it every day."

Blaine reached out again, patting the edge of the scarf lightly where it rested on Kurt's chest, and smoothing the lapels on his coat. "It looks good on you."

"I- I should- Rachel's having some kind of get together tonight."

"You should go." Blaine moved out of the way so that Kurt could get to the door.

"Your show. It's on Friday night?"

Blaine nodded. "8 o'clock. I only have the one song."

Kurt smiled and climbed up into the driver's seat. "It's a good song. You'll be great doing it. And I'll be there to see you."

Blaine tried to wave him off. "You don't have to-"

"Yes," Kurt said, resting his hand atop Blaine's where he was gripping the door. "I do, because I'm your friend and I will always love to watch you sing."

"Thank you." Blaine held his book up, but he was really thanking Kurt for so much more that he didn't have the words for. And he could tell that Kurt knew it.

"You're welcome," he said, smiling at Blaine all open and light.

Blaine waited until Kurt had his seatbelt on and his iPod docked before closing the door and watching him as he pulled out of the parking space. Blaine waited there, with flakes of wrapping paper on his shoes, until Kurt had driven off, onto the street and out of sight.

"I think I love you, Kurt," he whispered mostly to himself, now that it was silent and safe.

He shook with the truth of it, heavy in his chest and light in his limbs, felt the  _joy_ of admission for a brief minute before he had to swallow it all down and step back into his life.

* * *

Blaine slumped against the hard back of the wooden bench, eyes closed and waiting,  _wishing_ for a hole to swallow him up. "I'm so embarrassed," he moaned for the hundredth time in the half hour since the Warblers had been asked to leave The Gap. David and Wes and Nick had loaded the rest of the guys in to their cars and headed back to school, but Kurt had stayed and soothed Blaine with words and the most careful, gentlest of touches.

"Don't be. We all do silly things when we're not thinking right," and Blaine knew that Kurt was telling the truth. He'd heard the whole story about the first attempt at Hudson-Hummel household sharing. "But Blaine?"

Blaine opened his eyes into the harsh brightness of the cold day. "Yeah?"

"What  _were_ you thinking?"

"He- he was nice, funny. I thought he liked me." Blaine didn't say the things that had made him feel a little funny, like the way Jeremiah often seemed annoyed with the very essence of Blaine's high school self, or the pushy way Jeremiah had been last Thursday night, his hands rough and cool under Blaine's shirt, his body insistent in a way that made Blaine afraid in the instant before he'd pulled away and fumbled out of Jeremiah's car into the night. He didn't tell Kurt about wanting to do things even when he didn't, really, to make Jeremiah like him, or about the way Jeremiah's lips tasted, bitter and warm from his strong, black coffee. Nothing about Jeremiah was remotely close to anything about Kurt, not even his long fingers and delicate wrists that were brittle and hard where Kurt's were soft and fluid.

He couldn't say the worst of it, the part that made him feel like the worst friend in the world:  _I though he would help me forget about you_.

"He's too old for you, really," Kurt said, reaching his gloved hand out to cover Blaine's own. "And his hair? Blaine. His  _hair!"_

Blaine was so very grateful for Kurt in that moment, because it was entirely possible that Kurt already knew the worst of it,  _all_ of it, because he knew Blaine. And he knew that the best thing to do to pull Blaine out of himself was to make him laugh.

The two of them sat there, laughing at Blaine, and poor unknowing Jeremiah ( _his_   _hair!, Kurt would mutter when they had settled down, and it would send them off again)_ until silly tears turned icy on their cheeks. When they were finally done and Blaine felt a little less foolish, Kurt drove them to the Lima Bean and bought Blaine a coffee before confessing his affections.

The thought of it made Blaine a little flushed, but he couldn't want too much because he had just proven, yet again, how freaking inept he was at so many things. So he said nothing, just watched Kurt drink his mocha and thought about how sweet and smooth he would taste, chocolate and cream to mask the bitter of the coffee.

* * *

"I'm going out tomorrow night," Blaine said, setting his fork on the edge of his plate and wiping his lip gently with his napkin before he looked up at his parents.

"Where, and with whom?" His father peered at him over his nose, through the lenses of his glasses.

"One of Kurt's friends from McKinley is having a party, for Kurt's old glee club. He invited me."

"You won't know anyone there." Blaine watched his father scrape the gravy off his pork chop before he started trimming around the edges to get rid of the fat. "Isn't there something you could do with some of your Dalton friends?"

"Kurt is a Dalton friend, Dad. And I know his brother Finn, and his friend Mercedes. It's going to be fun, and silly, and exactly what we all need so close to Regionals."

"There are better ways to spend your time than on fun and silly." His father's voice was stiff, cold.

"Oh, honey." Blaine's mother pushed her spinach into a pile on her plate and sipped at the wine in her glass. "Let him go. There's nothing wrong with fun. He works so hard all the time," she said, rubbing the back of Blaine's hand in a gesture of what Blaine was sure she saw as comfort.

"Not hard enough," Blaine heard his father say, under his breath, before raising it again. "I don't like Kurt. I don't think he's the right kind of friend for you."

"Because he's gay?" Blaine asked after he'd swallowed a forkful of glazed carrots. "Or because his dad is a mechanic?"

"He's not  _our kind_ of people, Blaine."

Blaine crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto his half-full plate. "Dad. If you don't like Kurt being gay, if that makes him  _not our kind of people_ , then  _I'm_ not our kind of people either."

"We're not talking about you here."

Blaine pushed his chair away and stood on shaky legs. "Yes, Dad. We are. We're talking about me, and who I am and the things I can't change about myself."

"If you worked harder, if you worked at this like you worked at your other problems, you could  _get better_."

Blaine was halfway across the kitchen in a heartbeat, thinking about the sanctuary of his room and his cell phone and  _I need to talk to Kurt_  when his father's hand grabbed, hard and rough at his arm. Blaine startled and turned into his father's angry gaze. "How can you be a doctor and still believe lies like that? This is me, Dad. There is no better. There's just me." _Just me,_ he thought as he pulled his arm away and dashed up the stairs,  _just stupid spazzy Blaine, always trying and never enough._

* * *

Blaine followed Kurt down the stairs into Rachel's basement, feeling out of place without the comforting invisibility of his uniform, and tried to shut off his father's critical words that had been rattling around in his brain since the previous night. He needed to shut that voice out, so he took the first drink he'd been offered and downed it a little faster than he should have. But it did its intended job: it made him less jittery and his brain buzzed pleasantly in tune with the music that was blasting. Two more drinks, and he knew he was already both feet into goofball-spaz mode; he could feel his limbs loosening and his speech slurring. But he also felt free, like the alcohol gave him permission to revel in the things he worked so hard to suppress every day. So when the spinning amber of the beer bottle landed on him and he knew that Rachel was going to be on the other end, loud and demanding, he didn't worry about it.

He tuned out Kurt behind him ( _This is outstanding!)_ and all the half-strangers in the rest of the circle, and focused just on Rachel, on the softness of her lips and the smell of her shampoo and the way that his father's voice trickled into his thoughts,  _this is what you're supposed to want, supposed to do_.

It felt . . . fine, for what it was, and it made Blaine a little happy to know that he  _could_ kiss a girl if he wanted to. And it made his father's criticisms fall blissfully silent.

He probably wouldn't have done anything more about it except for filing  _kissing Rachel Berry_  next to  _singing to Jeremiah_  in his growing folder of "been there, done stupid shit", but then Rachel had  _called_  him. Asked him on a date. And even though what he  _wanted_  was Kurt, open and giving and so blissfully  _unashamed_ of having shared a bed with Blaine after the party, he said yes to Rachel.

He didn't know how to explain it to Kurt, that  _need_  to do just one thing right in his father's eyes, so he put the date off onto being confused ( _really, Blaine, what_ _ **were**_ _you thinking?)_ , and he'd mustered every ounce of righteous anger he'd felt about anything in his life to stage a storm-out, leaving Kurt alone at the Lima Bean.

Blaine felt terrible about it, and cried all the way home mostly because he didn't know how to fix things with Kurt, but also because he was more ashamed of himself than he'd ever admit. He'd  _lied_ to Kurt, despite their promises of honesty. He'd let his father's distance and fear and coldness take over.

And that scared him, because if he could give into his father on something like taking a girl on a date, how many  _other_ things would he acquiesce to, given time and the right words?

The date was pleasant, the kind of soft and sweet thing Blaine had always expected a date to be, but it didn't send his heart racing, and holding Rachel's hand didn't zing him the way even the  _idea_  of holding Kurt's did. When he'd dropped Rachel off at her silent, empty house, he'd wanted to drive over to Kurt's and apologize. Wanted to tell him the jumble of things in his head that began with  _I think I love you_  and ended with  _how can I be your everything when I'm not even enough for myself?_. But he couldn't do that either, so he just drove back to his own silent and empty house and tried not to hate himself too much.

* * *

Friday after school, he'd lingered behind, hoping for a chance to talk with Kurt, to make things right, but Kurt raced out of Warbler's practice like something was on fire, so Blaine took his time wandering over to the Lima Bean, and was kind of in a daze thinking about whether he  _really_  wanted his usual medium drip when Rachel was suddenly there, rising up on her toes to kiss him. And it was all the same things it had been at the party, but it wasn't  _right_ and Blaine knew it, smiled into the realization of it. Even the most abstract parts of his sexuality had been like clarity to him, made sense in a way nothing else in his world did.

"Do I need to say I told you so?" Kurt asked through guarded eyes when Blaine finally settled into the chair opposite him that Rachel had vacated.

"No." Blaine lowered his gaze to the pile of sugar packets he was working through to get his coffee just right. "I- god, Kurt. I'm really sorry for all of this. I just-"

"You just what?"

Blaine stirred his coffee and took a sip, sighed at the exact right proportions of coffee to cream and sugar, and tried to figure out which were the most important of all the words jumbled up in his head.

"I had a fight with my father, the night before the party."

Kurt nodded, and waved his hand, urging Blaine to continue. "He told me again that he basically wanted me to work harder at not being gay."

Kurt snorted and shook his head. "He doesn't get it, does he?"

"No. And sometimes . . . okay,  _all the time_ , I listen a little too hard to what he wants."

"So, what? You thought that going out with Rachel would make your dad happy?"

"No. Well. Kind of? I just thought, if I could be  _more_  of what he wanted, then maybe  _I'd_ be happier. Because-" Blaine stopped and took a breath, and swallowed, because he couldn't admit his own fears to Kurt, not like this.

Kurt reached across the table and tapped his fingers against Blaine's, and Blaine looked into his eyes, saw warmth and unspoken understanding there staring back at him. "Because what, Blaine?"

"Because . . .  _dammit_." Blaine got tangled in his words, and finally let them out in a rush of sound. "Because if I could make him like me, then maybe I'd like myself, too."

There was no pity at his statement, just Kurt, strong and silent and soft fingertips, and for a few brief moments Blaine's buzzing brain went silent.

It was so much better than alcohol.

* * *

For a while, Burt hadn't been able to figure out  _wha t_ was going on between Kurt and Blaine. He'd watched Kurt fall into an intense friendship so fast he'd almost gotten whiplash, and then he'd waited for the inevitable signs of Kurt's heartbreak. But the sad music and harsher than usual retorts and days of closed-door silence never came. There was just Kurt, more open and free than Burt could remember, and there was Blaine.

The kid was unfailingly polite, but with a gentle teasing nature that he and Kurt both appreciated. He was good to Kurt, patient, and heart-breakingly  _kind_.

Then he was there, past 9 am on the lazy Sunday morning when Kurt was supposed to help with brunch,  _in Kurt's bed._ Drunk. Drunk and in Kurt's bed. Something had happened that left Kurt annoyed, clearly at Blaine but taking it out on Burt, and yeah, maybe he deserved the dig about not knowing enough to have a gay sex talk with his gay kid, but he didn't think he deserved a confrontation in his own garage from the kid who wasn't quite but probably should be Kurt's boyfriend, no matter how nice he was to Kurt.

There was so much Blaine said, it made Burt's head spin. And there was plenty he  _didn't_ say that made Burt's heart ache. When he told Blaine that he had indeed been overstepping, he saw something shut down in the kid's eyes, and Burt moved closer, clapped a mostly clean hand gently on Blaine's shoulder, lightly enough to keep the grease off Blaine's coat but firmly enough that he felt Blaine stiffen and start to turn away at the touch.

"It's okay, kid. You just gave me the rest of the kick Kurt didn't deliver last week. You didn't do anything wrong."

Blaine just shook his head in silence, and muttered something unintelligible under his breath before turning to look at Burt. "Please don't tell Kurt I was here."

He sounded put down, in a way Burt didn't like to think about. Blaine was close to halfway across the garage, head tucked down like he was trying to hide. "Blaine," Burt called out, and he waited until the boy turned back to him, eyes dark with something hollow behind them. "Thank you, for caring about Kurt."

A tiny almost-smile tugged at the corner of Blaine's lips, and Burt watched him retreat into the office on his way to his car, a bare hint of lightness in his footsteps then.

Going to the free clinic was awkward, and dancing around Kurt in the kitchen was almost as bad. When he finally steered Kurt to the table and fanned the pamphlets in front of them both, his heart was hammering in his chest. Because none of those parenting books Elizabeth had read after Kurt was born told you what to do when it came time to have the gay sex talk with your gay son.

Instead, Burt thought of Blaine, brave in his defiance and strength, and the way he softened everything that had ever been tough and angular about Kurt. He kept telling himself that he was talking to Kurt about being with Blaine, even though neither of the boys realized it yet.

Because Burt might be awkward and he might be a little slow when it came to matters of his own heart, but he wasn't stupid, and he knew it was only a matter of time before those two got their acts together.

God help him.

* * *

Blaine had never set out to be the Warblers' star, but he wasn't going to apologize for his smashing success as lead soloist. It was an honor not usually bestowed on anyone other than a senior, but it was, oddly, something that got his father's approval. He knew it was part of the reason he had drawn Kurt's attention in the first place, and Blaine would never lie about loving the rush he got from performing, the way he didn't have to worry about being anything but his whole self when he was in front of a crowd singing away all of the stress and worry and imperfectness of his being.

Fronting the Warblers made him feel good and right, which was why Kurt's offhand comment about Blaine and the Pips stung so much, but Blaine didn't know what, if anything, he could do about it. Or if he even wanted to, really.

When the door to the Commons squeaked open on Tuesday afternoon and Kurt was there, strong and tall and defiantly out of uniform, and so incredibly  _beautiful_ that he took Blaine's breath away, Blaine had no choice but to blink a handful of times in case he was imagining all of it.

The song.  _God,_ the song.

Kurt was singing for Pavarotti, yes, but Blaine felt like Kurt was singing for him, too, for the parts of him that he hid from everyone but that Kurt could see anyway.  _Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly; all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise_.

He couldn't say anything, couldn't sing when the other guys joined in. All he could do was sit and stare at Kurt like he'd never seen him before, and pretend that his insides weren't turning to jelly at the thought that had been dogging him all these months, that  _Kurt_  was the easiest and best thing in his life, and that he'd been nothing but a damn  _idiot_ for ignoring it so long.

He spent nearly half an hour pacing outside the common room where Kurt was working, craft box and hot glue gun and a tiny balsa-wood box spread on the heavy oak table. He'd worked for two days on his speech, to get it  _just so_  and  _just right_ and eliminate any reasons Kurt might have for turning him down.

And as soon as he'd crossed the threashold, song title on his lips and a lump in his throat, he nearly forgot every word, because Kurt's  _hands,_ his amazing gentle hands were wielding hot glue and the tiniest of sequins, and the way he moved, so easy and secure in himself made Blaine want to fall apart from the aching.

He babbled when he got nervous, which had been the whole point of the prepared speech, but all he could remember were fragments of  _Candles_  and  _forever_ and  _move me_. He couldn't think at all in the instant before he saw  _everything_  in Kurt's eyes that had been scared and resigned and hopeful and now something sparkly and  _oh, finally!_  It was like giving in and taking away, and Blaine was right there, his mouth on Kurt's and Kurt's  _hand_ against his face, and it was everything and perfect and like he didn't need to pretend anything anymore.

When they'd pulled lightly apart, Blaine didn't even fight the blush in his cheeks or the sheepish grin on his face. He didn't even flinch at the smear of glue and the trio of silver jewels stuck to the side of his right hand. Instead, he laughed at Kurt's comment about practicing, and then he leaned in and met Kurt halfway that time.

* * *

Evenings, after Kurt had gone home to his bustling and busy house and Blaine was alone, he would think about the way Kurt's mouth felt against his, the way his hands would sometimes snake up and grip in Blaine's hair. He would replay the tiny moments, the tentative way Kurt would sometimes rest a hand on Blaine's hip, or the way it felt when they were a little too close, hands a little too wanting and bodies a little too desperate. The times they would pull apart like they'd been shocked, breath heavy and both of them with sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes and pink cheeks that had nothing to do with the relative coolness of Ohio springtime outside one of their cars.

On the afternoons when things were simply  _too much_ , when Blaine wanted to dig and dig at Kurt's layers and lay his own self bare for Kurt, they would settle for chaste hand-holding and coffee at the Lima Bean. Most of the time it was easy and light with the promise of a goodbye kiss to come, until the day it was everything but. Until the day Santana started asking about Karofsky and Kurt going back to McKinley, and Blaine knew from the way Kurt was simply vibrating with the idea of it for  _days_ afterwards that it's going to happen. And sooner rather than anything else.

Blaine expected it to take weeks instead of days.

Days were too soon. Days didn't give him enough time to prepare for the drought of days at Dalton and stolen afternoons with Kurt, even less time than he'd already had.

Days weren't enough time to build his walls up again. Without Kurt to absorb him, all day every day, he was going to drown. Because nobody else was  _safe_ the way Kurt was.

* * *

The Warblers were kind, to go with him. He half suspected that Wes and David knew how badly he was hurting, and while he'd wanted it to be  _his_ goodbye to Kurt, he needed his friends with him that morning.

He didn't think he'd make it without crying, but he did. They clung to each other afterwards, until Kurt's friends were antsy around him and Wes was tugging at his sleeve, because they had to get back in time for 5th period. Blaine felt empty even with his friends, and he wondered if Kurt felt the same as he looked back at his boyfriend, proud and primping and so  _at home_. He wondered if Kurt meant it, or was just putting on a good show.

He tried not to be hurt when Kurt didn't even look up to watch him leave.

* * *

Blaine had hoped he'd be able to just ignore that prom even existed, but he loved Kurt so much that he couldn't crush the want and excitement in his voice and on his face, so he'd agreed to go, and somehow ended up scrunched on the dusty tile floor of the hall outside of the gym trying to ease the terrible,  _terrible_ hurt that was pouring out of Kurt.

Blaine had never felt so useless, not even after the Sadie Hawkins dance, curled away and still on the cold sidewalk pretending to be unconscious and listening to the slap and thunk of boots against Eric's torso. Because Eric had been his friend, but  _Kurt_ held his heart, and he needed to do more than pretend at self-preservation.

Blaine gestured at the floor next to him. "Would you at least sit down? Do you wanna go? We don't have to go back in there." He watched Kurt, pacing and twisting his hands. It was making Blaine nervous.

"Wasn't this prom supposed to be about redemption? About taking away that lump you had in your throat from running away? If we leave, all it's gonna do is give me a lump, too." Blaine's heart broke a little at the way Kurt was trying to soothe  _him_ ; it didn't feel  _right_ , at all. Blaine knew that  _he_ was supposed to be the caretaker in this scenario, but he didn't know how to do any of that.

"So what do you wanna do?" The metal of the lockers was cool through his tux jacket, and it gave him something outside of his burning skin and jumbled heart to focus on.

"I'm gonna go back in there and get coronated. I'm gonna show them that it doesn't matter if they are yelling at me or whispering behind my back, they can't touch me." Kurt knelt in front of him, looked him in the eye; it felt like he was sending Blaine every ounce of his tremendous strength."They can't touch us or what we have."

The Warblers had told Blaine that they thought he and Kurt were brave for taking on Prom at the school that had sent Kurt into exile for those dark months, and Blaine had told them it had next to nothing to do with bravery. But he hadn't understood what it  _really_  meant until he watched Kurt stride onto that stage and wear that  _stupid_  crown. Yes, Kurt was brave. But tackling your demons in a custom kilt was confidence and strength and passion and hope. It was about showing those unaware  _children_ that they couldn't break you.

Kurt knew it to his core. Blaine swallowed around a lump in his throat in the instant before Karofsky ran from the gym and realized that he'd better learn it fast. Because the music was cliche and on the edge of painful, but Blaine couldn't leave Kurt standing there alone. He stepped up, reached out a trembling hand to his beautiful boyfriend, and put himself out there.

It was scarier than their first kiss, than his first Hummel/Hudson Family Dinner. Harder than walking away from Kurt in the McKinley courtyard.

It felt like he was crossing a line within himself, away from the things he did because he  _should_  and towards the things he did because he  _wanted._ He knew if he spoke too loudly he'd betray himself to the entire gym, but he only needed one person to hear him.

"May I have this dance?"

 


	2. Chapter 2

Summer stretched, warm and languid and full of empty hours, in front of Blaine and his heart. He'd thought it was going to beat out of his chest that morning in the Lima Bean on Kurt's last day of school, when he'd looked across the table and lifted his filter for the last time and told Kurt he loved him.

And then it nearly stopped beating when Kurt swallowed coffee past his surprise and said it  _back_.

Some days, Blaine still didn't understand what was lovable about him, and he told Kurt as much one morning as they shared bagels in the park before Blaine had to go down to Six Flags for rehearsal and Kurt had to go to the garage.

"That's what summer will be," Kurt smiled at him, a smear of strawberry cream cheese at the corner of his lip. He smiled at Blaine gently, but with nothing but kindness. "I wish you could see yourself the way  _I_ see you." He rubbed his thumb over the back of Blaine's hand, and Blaine thought about what it might be like next year, graduation at their heels and their whole lives out there for the taking.

"Teach me," Blaine said, resting his head on Kurt's shoulder and sipping at his coffee for the last brief moments before he had to leave.

"As you wish," Kurt murmured, kissing his hair.

* * *

It had seemed so easy in Kurt's head when he mentioned it in June, but by July he knew that the task of repairing Blaine's self-esteem was going to be nothing but difficult.

He had been chewing on something Blaine had mentioned to him the night before, when they were sitting together on the porch swing watching the fireflies in the grass, and was still wrapped up in it when he walked blindly into his dad at the Mr. Coffee in the garage office.

"What's up, kiddo?"

"Hm?" Kurt looked up from his daze, watched his dad fill his mug half with regular coffee before topping it off with decaf, and didn't blink.

"You've been distracted all morning. Things okay with you and Blaine?"

"Oh. Yeah. We're good." And Kurt meant it, because he knew that he and Blaine were as solid as Mike and Tina right now, he just didn't know if  _Blaine_ was solid. He leaned back against the counter and waited while his dad poured milk into his coffee. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Has Blaine ever- do you- has he ever mentioned his parents to you?" Kurt knew there were times when he wasn't around and Blaine would hang out with his dad and Finn, and he was sure there were conversations he hadn't been privy to.

His dad ran a hand over the bill of his ballcap. "Just once. Something about rebuilding a car. Why? Something wrong at his house?"

Kurt wasn't sure if there was any kind of difference between  _wrong_  and  _just not right_ , so he shook his head. "I don't think so. I just- I think Blaine's dad . . . maybe doesn't always like a lot of things about Blaine."

"His being gay."

Kurt nodded at his dad's flat tone, but went on. "Yes, but that's not all. His grades, his activities.  _Me_ , even before we were dating, back when we were just friends."

His dad waved a hand in the air and fixed him with a stare. "You guys, you've never been just friends, it just took you forever to figure it out. But go on."

"Blaine just doesn't have the kind of love and support from his parents that I have from you. And he doesn't always think very much of himself." Kurt wanted to tell his dad everything, all the little comments Blaine would tell him in their quiet evening hours together, between kisses and strong hands on night-cooled skin, but they were Blaine's longest-kept secrets and hardest admissions.

"Mmm. But you've known this awhile, yeah?" At Kurt's affirmative nod, his dad kept on. "So what's got your goat this morning?"

"They had another fight yesterday."

"They fight a lot?"

"Um. It's been worse, since the spring."  _Since Blaine and I started dating_ , Kurt thought, but couldn't admit out loud.

"OK. So. Are you you just going to tell me or do I need to pull every word from you? Because I saved a timing belt for you, but if you take too long with all this stuff, I might need to hand it off to Benny or Hal."

_Damn_. Kurt  _loved_  timing belts. Anything to do with engines, really, because they were like puzzles. He took a sip of coffee and a deep breath, thought about Blaine crying softly into the phone and the way he'd felt so helpless in his comfortable, accepting house. "His dad . . . he told Blaine he'd never been the kind of boy who would make a father proud, but he wished that Blaine would at least  _try_." He felt tears pricking the corners of his eyes. "What kind of a parent would  _think_ that about their child, let alone actually say it to their face?"

The tears were falling in earnest then, hot and salty on Kurt's cheeks, and his dad was holding him tight in his arms. Kurt secretly loved that his dad was free with his affections; usually a heavy hand on his shoulder was all he needed, but sometimes the best thing in the world was the scratchy poly-blend of his dad's coverall under his cheek and the comforting smell of Old Spice mixed with engine oil. All of it made Kurt feel safe, and it was even better when he hadn't known he needed it.

He let his dad hold him a few seconds longer than normal, then pulled away and wiped his face on one of the bandanas he kept in his pockets for clean-up while he was working. "I just- I wish there was something I could do to  _help_ , you know?"

"Kurt. It's not your job to fix Blaine, or Blaine's relationship with his father."

"But- I told him I'd help."

His dad smiled at him, the real kind that crinkled his eyes and lit up his face. "You do, kiddo. I can tell. Just- don't worry on it so much, and keep doing whatever you've been doing. You can't fix what happens in that house, but you can give Blaine what he needs  _outside_  of his house. Just, keep being you, okay?  _You're_ what Blaine needs."

"Okay." Kurt felt a little coil of tension settle in his stomach, a little nagging question in his head whispering  _what if you're not enough?_ "What if I'm not enough?"

"Oh, kiddo. You don't have to be his  _everything_. You just have to be  _something_. You have to be yourself. And if it feels like too much, for God's sake  _talk_ to me, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now. Do you want the timing belt?"

* * *

"What would you think if I transferred to McKinley?" Blaine shifted onto his side and ran a hand through his hair where it was warm and a little sweat-damp from being on Kurt's shoulder. He laid his palm flat on Kurt's stomach to compensate for the sudden lack of contact, and he shivered when Kurt ran a finger gently in the crook of his elbow.

"I think your father would kill me. And then you."

"I don't care. I can't-  _God_ , Kurt. I don't think I can take another year of suffocating every day."

"But you love Dalton." Kurt rolled onto his side so that he was facing Blaine, and he tapped a finger on the tip of Blaine's nose. "And don't you dare tell me that's not true."

Blaine shook his head. "My dad loves what Dalton makes me seem like to the world. I  _loved_ Dalton because it gave me sanctuary. But . . . I don't think I need that anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because," Blaine pressed a kiss to Kurt's forehead, "I have you. And you taught me how not to hide. I can't do that at Dalton. I  _need_ to be someplace where I can be all of myself."

"I- Blaine. I don't think-" He could hear Kurt's reticence, and he pulled back because maybe,  _just mayebe_ the idea of being in the same school again was too much for Kurt.

"I'm sorry. God, Kurt. If it's too much, I'll stay at Dalton. It's not that big a deal, really." He sat up, swung his legs over the side of Kurt's bed and reached his feet out, searching for his flip-flops where he'd kicked them off before tumbling down into the security of Kurt's arms.

"Blaine, wait." Kurt's hand was almost too hot on his shoulder. "Just- stop, will you? And let me explain?" His sigh was frustrated and a little pained, so Blaine stopped scrabbling for his shoes but he stayed turned away, facing the window with his feet braced flat on the floor. He watched the kids across the street running through the garden sprinkler in their clothes, their mom half-laughing and half-frowning at them from the porch.

"What? What is there to explain? You don't want me at McKinley-"

"No, that's not it at all." Kurt's arms tightened around him, pulled him back down on the bed so that he was wrapped up in Kurt's body. "I would  _love_  to have you at McKinley. but I need you to understand . . . I can't be everything for you." Blaine felt Kurt's head shaking lightly behind him. "I don't even thing I can be everything for myself, most days. So just- _think_  before you leap. If you're going to make a big change like this, don't do it because of me, or because of your father. Because if you don't do this for yourself, for the _right_ reasons, then how am I any better than your father?"

"You could never be anything like my father. But . . ." Blaine wrapped his own arms around Kurt's where they crossed over his chest, enjoying the feeling of  _home_  that was a part of every touch he shared with Kurt. "If you want me to think longer, I will." He smiled to himself. "I'm probably going to do it anyway, though," he said teasingly, and jumped when Kurt used first his lips and then the gentle graze of his teeth against the side of Blaine's neck. "You. Are.  _Evil_."

Blaine turned fast in Kurt's arms, jabbing a finger into Kurt's side just under his ribcage in the place that always made him squeal and slide away, collapsed in giggles.

But Kurt just gritted his teeth. "War!" He grunted, somehow managing the most gentle of touches at the very top of Blaine's neck, right at his hairline. The same spot that always sent ticklish shivers through his whole body. But they didn't feel ticklish that time. Instead, every touch, every attempt at playfulness that he and Kurt had spent so much time learning felt _charged_  and alive with something  _more_.

Blaine was too wrapped up in his thoughts to realize Kurt had flipped him onto his back until Kurt was pressed full and long against him, using his height advantage to basically pin Blaine to the bed.

"Oh." Blaine opened his eyes and hardly had time to blink before Kurt's mouth was on his, and all of it was hot and wet and a little sloppy and  _everything_  Blaine had been wanting but had been afraid to ask for because they were still so very  _careful_ around anything that might be read as sexual.

"You need to wear more tank tops," Kurt muttered as his trailed kisses down Blaine's neck onto his shoulder.

"You need to wear fewer clothes, period," Blaine said, plucking his hand at the collar of the undershirt peeking out from beneath Kurt's button-down. "And the belts. It's August, Kurt. Stop with the-  _ugh_." He almost jumped in surprise when Kurt bucked his hips gently, because  _holy fuck_  they'd never done  _this_  before, and it was  _so_ not part of the plan they'd established for these things.

"Shut. Up." Kurt dropped his forehead to Blaine's shoulder and rolled his hips again, and  _oh shit,_  was that Kurt's  _hand?_ Blaine could feel Kurt's fingers brushing the waistband of his shorts, seeking button and zipper, and Blaine suddenly  _wanted_ so much, not just Kurt's hand but his own hands, peeling away at Kurt's clothes.

"Ungh. Too many clothes, K. Hold on," he shifted them both onto their sides so he could help with his own shorts before tackling Kurt's.

"Shutupshutupshutup, and just freaking  _touch me already_." Kurt's touch wasn't gentle anymore, but needy and strong and Blaine knew he needed to focus on something or he would be done for in seconds. Kurt's fingers were long and smooth and cool against his erection, and it felt so much better than his own hand.

"Oh, God,  _Kurt_ ," he whispered into the crook of Kurt's neck. He closed his eyes and breathed in Kurt, and the smell of cut grass from somewhere, and the fabric softener on Kurt's sheets, and then he was able to focus on the lightness in his body, and the way his  _soclose_  orgasm was coiling in his abdomen, and then there was something else in his consciousness, something  _coffee_  and  _bells_ and-

"Boys? Is Blaine staying for-"

And Kurt was gone, shifted away, his voice high and panicked.

"Carole?"

"Oh, Kurt, I- I'm-"

Blaine had his eyes closed against the melee, but he muttered to nobody in particular, "I'm  _so_ embarrassed right now."

Carole's voice sounded distant and a little bit stunned and more than a little amused, and Blaine could hear her clogs clicking on the floor as she headed down the hall. "I'm going to make some lemonade and give you two a minute. Come down for cookies, too, and we can talk, okay?"

"Oh, my  _god!_ " Kurt dropped his head back to the pillow. "I'm so sorry, Blaine. I wanted- and you didn't even-"

Blaine ran a hand over his flaming cheeks. "It's, well. Not okay, but you know what I mean. I'll manage. At least it wasn't your dad?"

Kurt hummed in agreement. "Or  _yours_ ," he said with a slightly harsh laugh. "C'mon," he tugged at the hem of Blaine's tank top. "Let's get put together and go have some cookies and lemonade. Like we're six or something."

"It's sweet," Blaine said, tucking himself back together and running a hand through his out-of-control summer frizz of curls. "She cares about you."

"Sweet, I'll give you. But the talk that's going to follow? File it under mortifying." Kurt shook his head mournfully. "I think we're going to have to set some boundaries," he said as he took Blaine's hand and led him out of the bedroom. "Because now that we've tried that? I don't know if I could stop again." His look was only half-teasing, and Blaine completely understood.

"I don't think I could stop again, either." Kurt squeezed his hand and smiled at him, something intense and a little regretful in his eyes.

"Good," Kurt said, as they navigated their way down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Just don't tell Carole that," he whispered in the moment before Carole turned and ushered them to the table, cold lemonage and homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. It all felt like  _home_  to Blaine, as much as  _Kurt_  did, and even though he was embarrassed it all felt real and right, and Blaine wanted to hold on to  _all_ of it.

* * *

"This no hands rule pretty much sucks," Blaine muttered into the cloth of Kurt's t-shirt as Kurt moved Blaine's hands from his hips back up to his waist.

"Might I remind you that this was  _your_  idea? What was it you said? Oh, yes,  _better not to touch than be tempted."_

Blaine sat up and rested his head against the back of his seat. "I'm pretty sure that may have been the dumbest thing I've ever said."

"I think you might be right about that."

Blaine reached over the console and twined his fingers into Kurt's. "I think I'm going to tell my dad tonight."

"I'm pretty sure he already knows about the gay thing, baby." Kurt's voice was teasing.

"About transferring." Blaine swallowed around the butterflies under his ribcage. "I need to do it, and I think sooner is better than later."

"Are you  _sure_  about this? Because McKinley doesn't have the reputation that Dalton does. And you know that it's not going to be easy for you,  _for us_ , there."

"I know," Blaine nodded. "I'm not doing this for the easy, you  _know_  that. I just- I  _need_ this."

Kurt squeezed his hand. "I suppose, if you can survive your father then you'll have no trouble surviving McKinley."

* * *

Blaine had expected to have to search his father out, in his study or the very off-limits master bedroom, but he pulled up in surprise when he slipped through the front door 5 minutes before his curfew to see his father, sitting stiffly in one of the living room chairs, a tumbler of iced down scotch swirling in his hand.

"Dad." Blaine nodded, nervous and jittery in the worst way. He closed his eyes, stilled himself in the way he knew his father would like. "What are you doing up?"

"We never see you anymore. You're always out. With that  _boy._ " Blaine could feel his father's scowl without even having to look.

"Kurt. His name is Kurt. And I- I-" Blaine stammered, warring over what he  _needed_ to say, and what he  _wanted_ to say.  _Need first,_ he told himself.

"You what?" his father snapped, as if he already knew what Blaine was trying to say.

_Need first_. "I'm transferring to McKinley."

Blaine startled as his dad slammed his glass down on the coffee table, condensation spattering over the surface. "You are doing no such thing."

"Yes, Dad. I am. I  _need_  this. Dalton isn't going to give me the tools I need to make it in the world."  _Steady_ , he could hear Kurt's voice in his head.  _Courage_ , come back full circle.

"Dalton will give you the best education. That is the only tool you need," his father said, conviction rich in his voice.

Blaine turned away for a moment, ran his hands through his hair in frustration. When he turned back, he could feel the flush of anger in his face. "God, Dad. You're never going to get it, are you. The summer camps, the car,  _Dalton_? None of it is going to make me straight. None of it is going to make me into the person you want, the  _son_ you want. Why can't you see me?"

His dad shook his head, frowning at his shoes. "All I see is a child who doesn't appreciate all the advantages he's been given, who doesn't respect his family and his community. I see a spoiled, over-indulged  _brat._ "

Blaine planted his hands on the back of the sofa and stared at his father. "You have no fucking clue, Dad. I never asked for any of those things. All they taught me was that I wasn't enough for you. Not enough of a man, not the right kind of son. And I never will be, will I?"

"You're my son. I love you." It was obligation, and Blaine knew it. He shook his head, because his father clearly didn't.

"No. You don't." Blaine could feel tears welling up in his eyes. "You tolerate the idea of me, but nothing I do, nothing I become, will ever be what you want. Because I'm not perfect, Dad. I'm a broken mess, and I need Kurt and McKinley so that I can learn to put myself back together again."

"You're not going to that school with that boy. I won't allow it." His father turned on him then, face stony and voice cold.

Blaine closed his eyes, gathering his strength for the next part of the battle, when he felt movement behind him and a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I will." His mother's voice was steel. "I'll sign whatever you need, baby."

The endearment that from Kurt sent shivers down his spine had an entirely different effect from his mother's mouth. He hadn't heard her say it since he was a sad little boy, six years old and upset from facing down his first schoolyard bully. The unusual support from his mother sent him reeling, tearful and broken, into her arms.

* * *

When Blaine was a little boy, he had been Catherine's. She had loved those days, when Kent was doing his surgical residency and it was just her and her baby boy. Those lazy years of Blaine's early childhood were a bright haziness in her memory, walks to the park and sandcastles and swings, snuggles and Blaine's upstretched arms and his smile, and his funny little way of signing and talking. "Mease, Mommy, mease!" for "more, please," chubby hand smearing strawberry juice in a circle on the front of his t-shirt and Catherine would just smile and scoop him up for berry-sticky kisses before stripping him out of his dirty clothes and letting him run through the apartment in his diaper.

When he hit elementary school, he was hers until the day an older 3rd grade boy called him a sissy, a Mama's Boy. Blaine had come home, backpack dangling from his scrawny shoulder, and climbed up into her lap at the table for the last time. He was still baby-fat in his hands and cheeks, and he curled into her and cried into her shirt before swiping at his cheeks with his fists and straightening up. "Don't tell Daddy," he'd asked in a whisper.

"I won't, baby," she promised, her heart breaking.

"I need to be a big boy now," he nodded, and thumped up the stairs to his room, backpack banging on the stairs behind him.

After that, it wasn't so much that he was Kent's boy, because he  _wasn't_  in the least. It was just that he was  _absent_ from her in a way that made her heart ache to have her little boy back.

Watching him learn to hide almost broke her. At first it was small things, things that garnered the faintest of Kent's praise, a perfect spelling test or doing chores without being asked. As he got older, bigger things started to pile up. Soccer and lacrosse instead of band and drama. Not putting up a fight over that summer camp in Maine when what he'd really wanted to do was the rec center musical theater intensive.

And then something shifted. Catherine felt it sweep through the house those first weeks of Blaine's freshman year, saw it in the way her boy went tense and silent and more withdrawn than normal, and she didn't have to wonder about it at all. Blaine was her son, her  _baby_ , and she just knew. She didn't blink when he'd blurted his secret to her and Kent over dinner one Friday night, casually spooning peas onto his plate in one breath and in the next staring at them with wavering confidence, his shaky breath a giveaway to what his words would hold.

"I'm gay," he whispered over pot roast and potatoes, and Kent's fork clattered to his plate. Catherine just sat and watched Kent rail over Blaine's bowed head, because what could she do? She had known, of course, because he was her son and she knew him like her own heartbeat.

After, he sat slumped at the table in the aftermath of Kent's oddly calm dismissal of everything Blaine had told them. Catherine cleared the plates, took Kent a scotch in his office, and returned to the kitchen where she sat with Blaine, murmured words he didn't seem to hear, but they made her feel better. Things she hoped he'd come back to when he wasn't shocked and hurting, the things she'd whispered to him as a toddler when he'd tumble off of everything he climbed and hurt himself.  _I love you, you're my son, this changes nothing in my eyes_.  _You are okay, you are good and strong and brave_. Most of it was for Blaine, but some was for her, too, a defiance of all the things she'd become in the years since they moved from Columbus. A defiance of Kent, if she were being really honest.

She held Blaine's hand in the emergency room when the resident put 8 stitches in his forehead and casted his broken wrist, and silently thanked a God she didn't believe in that those bastards outside of the dance hadn't hurt him worse.

The following week, she hemmed his uniform pants and took up the sleeves on his new Dalton blazers even though Kent said it was just as easy to send them to the tailor. But the sewing helped soothe her raw, nervous edges; she hadn't used her machine since the lean years of Kent's internship and residency, back when she bought Blaine's clothes a size and season ahead, constantly taking in and letting down so he could get two years out of the same outfits. But it felt good, those hours in the attic, dust motes floating in hazy sunlight as she did something concrete to help her son.

For almost two years, she watched Blaine become a shell of himself, constantly struggling and striving to be everything that Kent would approve of, and she watched as he was broken down, smaller and smaller, time and time again. Until he came home from school on an October afternoon last year a little looser, buzzing with the kind of energy she had gotten used to seeing only when he sang.

Then there was a name, a  _boy_ , text messages and hushed phone calls and afternoon coffees. And then Catherine could see that the boy,  _Kurt_ , was a gift. A miracle worker. He was giving Catherine her son, her  _baby_ , back.

She was two chapters into the Diana Gabaldon she'd been shuffling from nightstand to desk to car to office and back again for two years when the loud disagreement started, so she'd stood at the top of the stairs listening to Blaine try, again and again and against all hope, to  _make_ Kent understand something he was never going to.

Her good, brave boy, putting himself out there for slaughter.

She took a deep breath, crossed the room. And spoke the words aloud, did the thing she should have done when Blaine was six and crying in her arms.

"I'll sign whatever you need, baby."

Kent glared at her in the moment before he stomped off to his office, and she was there, picking up the pieces and parts of her shattered son. She only hoped that she would be able to help him now in the ways she hadn't been for so long.

"You're still my good, brave boy," she whispered into his ear, held him tight.

When his sobs shuddered to ragged breaths, he pulled away and wiped his cheeks with his hands. "Thank you, Mommy," he whispered hoarsely, and her heart broke all over again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quotes from Glee are not mine; they are taken from 3.05. Quotes from the book Blaine is reading are property of David Levithan, author of the amazing YA novel Boy Meets Boy, as well as a host of other YA books featuring transformational GLBT characters.

McKinley wasn't  _hard_ , exactly. The classes were easy, and Blaine was good enough at playing at confidence that he didn't face quite the same wrath from the other students that most of New Directions did. Walking into a situation with a ready group of friends helped.

But Blaine felt tender, raw and bruised under his skin, like he was growing out of himself. The only times he felt right was when he was with Kurt, so he hung around after school for Mr. Schue's booty camp and on the nights when his mom had to go to work or social functions with his dad, he'd have dinner with Kurt's family. One Wednesday in October, he was sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, pouring over some Calculus while Kurt was upstairs getting his own homework when Burt wandered through the kitchen looking for something.

Blaine waited while Burt opened and closed three cupboards and the fridge before digging a sleeve of Oreos out of the depths of a fourth cupboard. He poured a mug of milk and waggled a finger at Blaine. "Don't you even breathe a word of this to Kurt."

"No, sir." Blaine shook his head and gnawed on the eraser end of his pencil while he studied his problem set and tried to ignore Burt staring at him.

"Kid." Blaine turned in his chair at the gentle gruffness in Burt's voice. "Are things- are you- is-" Burt sighed, and looked away before he blurted out, "are things okay for you at home?"

Blaine felt his eyes widen, and he must have paused for too long before replying, because But was suddenly apologetic. "I didn't mean to be too forward, it's just that you're here almost every night, not that you're not welcome, because you  _are_. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay."

Blaine set his pencil down and crossed his arms over the back of his chair, rested his chin on the back of his arms. "I don't like eating alone." It wasn't the whole story, but it was all he could manage at the moment, the easiest thing to say in a situation where even  _that_ wasn't an easy answer.

"Christ, Blaine. You're as bad as Kurt. Have to pull every damn thing out of you. That's not an answer to  _are you okay_."

"I- well. My dad? He doesn't like that I transferred, or that my mom signed all the papers. Things are chilly, to say the least, right now." He waved his hands in front of himself in a vague gesture. "That's kind of saying a lot, because things have never been warm to begin with. My mom has been trying to be home more, but sometimes she has to go to my dad's work things, or dinner with the neighbors or whatever. Appearances, and all." Blaine shrugged, because he was really never going to understand what was so important about impressing neighbors or colleagues.

"You seem . . .  _different?_ Since coming to McKinley." Burt shuffled his hands, looking for the ballcap that Blaine had watched him take off before dinner. "There's a lot I don't know, but you seem happier. Oreo?" Burt held out the sleeve of cookies, and Blaine took three, setting them in a neat pile next to his Calculus book.

"I am." Blaine smiled, and felt a blush creeping up his cheeks. He watched Burt pull another mug down from where they hang on pegs over the sink, filled it with milk, and sat it down on the table in front of Blaine. He pulled a chair out with a scrape and sat, eyeing Blaine with caution.

"You and Kurt- that going okay?"

"Um." Blaine swallowed, and focused on twisting the top off his first cookie. "Yes, sir. Kurt is- look. I know it sounds crazy, or corny, or whatever. But Kurt makes me feel real. Like, being with him makes me  _more_ of myself, you know?"

Burt leaned back in his chair, sighed lightly and nodded. "Yeah, kid. I do."

Blaine wondered if Burt was thinking about Carole, or Kurt's mom. Or maybe both of them, because he suspected that love made you feel the way Kurt made him feel, and Burt was clearly lucky enough to have loved two women in his life.

Blaine nibbled at the edges of his last cookie and sipped at his milk in silence, hoping that he hadn't said too much. He waited while Burt downed the last of his milk, and watched him twist the plastic around the last of the cookies, hide them back in the cupboard, and put his mug in the dishwasher. He turned back and clasped Blaine's shoulder. "Take care of yourself, kid. You're good for Kurt, and I can see that he's good for you. You treat each other right, you  _respect_ each other. It's a good start. And don't worry, you're always welcome for dinner."

He pulled away then at the sound of Kurt clattering down the stairs and nodded at Blaine. "Always welcome. And drink your milk."

* * *

The driveway was empty when Blaine got home just before 10, but he could see that someone had left not only the outside lights on, but also the kitchen and living room lamps. He let himself in, hung his coat appropriately in the closet, and tossed his bag in defiance on a living room chair before wandering into the kitchen. There was a plastic-covered plate on the counter with a sticky note on top.

**Blaine-**

**I had to go to Columbus with your father for an awards banquet, but I thought you might want a snack when you got in from Kurt's. Maybe next time, we can make them together.**

**Love**  
 **Mom**

Chocolate chip cookies, the way Blaine liked them with pecans and oats. The way he vaguely remembered helping his mom make them, his awkward hands clutching a wooden spoon and his mother's admonitions to  _stir carefully, baby, so the oats don't spill_. Blaine poured himself a glass of milk and took the plate up to his room, thinking that he'd snack while he finished  The House on Mango Streetfor English, but when he slipped into his room and turned on the light he found a paper bag from the independent bookstore in Dayton, full of books and with another post it on the side.

**B-**

**I'm sorry, I don't know what you're reading these days. But I was down in Dayton for lunch today and couldn't resist. I hope I guessed right.**

**-Mom**

Blaine dumped the books onto his comforter and took quick note of two books by Connie Willis, who he'd read voraciously the summer after 9th grade. The trilogy of Swedish crime novels that had been popular a few years back as well that Blaine had never gotten around to, and at the very bottom a slim blue volume with a title in letters so small that Blaine had to blink twice at to make sure he'd read it correctly. Boy Meets Boy. Hm. He stacked the rest of the books on his nightstand, changed into his sweatpants and the Dalton Athletics t-shirt he liked to sleep in, and crawled into bed. The book was meant for kids a little younger than Blaine, but that didn't matter once he had fallen into the dream-like quality of the writing. He worked his way through half the plate of cookies, and had to pad back downstairs for a refill of his milk, and was swirling around in phrases like  _my lines all curve. I tend to connect the wrong dots_  and  _I find my greatest strength in wanting to be strong. I find my greatest bravery in deciding to be brave. I don't know if I've ever realized it before,[...] I think we both realize it now. If there's no feeling of fear, then there's no need for courage_ when his door squeaked open and his mom poked her head around to look at him.

"It's past midnight," she said, looking at the delicate gold-banded dress watch on her wrist.

Blaine waved the book at her. "I only have about 10 pages left," he said, and smiled sheepishly.

"You really are my kid," she laughed, before crossing into his room and stopping, like she wasn't sure what to do next. Blaine scooted his legs over and patted the edge of the bed. She sat, then, rearranged the skirt of her dress and kicked off her heels before crossing her ankles.

"I did alright, then, picking books?" She sounded hopeful, like she really wanted to have done something well. Blaine knew that feeling all too well.

"They're perfect. Thank you. And the cookies. I remember when we used to make them together." He saw a genuine smile cross her face.

"You do?"

"Yeah. I- I'd like to make them with you next time. Maybe . . ." Blaine paused, mulling over his next words because it wasn't that he didn't want the time with his mom, it was just that he thought maybe he wanted to include his mom in the  _other_ parts of his life. "Maybe sometime we could have Kurt and his stepmom over, and we could all do something together. Kurt especially likes to bake."

Blaine pretended that he didn't see the way his mom wiped at her eyes, careful not to smear her makeup. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "I- I think I'd like that. Kurt- he makes you happy, doesn't he?"

Blaine nodded, and when his mom slid her hand over his he didn't pull away. "Good," she said. "I don't want to pretend that part of your life doesn't exist. Kurt, and his family, they're a part of you now too." His mom nodded, like she had a plan in the works. "Why don't you give me Carole's number, and she and I can set something up. Now," she patted his arm, "ten pages or not, you have school in the morning."

Blaine sighed and set the book on his nightstand. He waited until his mom was almost out the door before speaking. "Mom?"

"Yes, baby?"

"Thank you, for everything." How to tell her that he was happy to be getting his mom back, that she was  _trying_ in the same ways he was, that they were learning to be themselves again. But he didn't have the words.

When he looked over at his mother and saw the look of free and open love on her face, he knew that he didn't need the words.

* * *

Blaine spent three weeks shifting the narrow envelope full of West Side Story tickets from his locker to his bag to his jacket to his desk, and he couldn't make himself drive the distance to Dalton. He thought about dropping them in the mail to Jeff, but  _that_ didn't seem right either.

"Why don't you go tomorrow," Kurt said, pulling the envelope out of the breast pocket of Blaine's shirt and setting it on Blaine's nightstand before tugging him down onto the bed. "We don't have rehearsal, and you  _know_ that Nick will be keeping the guys late this close to Sectionals."

Blaine snorted. "Wes and David taught him well."

"Exactly. Take them the tickets, have a coffee, see your friends, Blaine." Kurt leaned over and kissed him, long and slow, and Blaine shivered. Artie's words to him fluttered through his consciousness, and he cursed the "no hands" rule for about the millionth time since he'd brought it up, because he could feel Kurt deepening the kiss, felt his hands settling at the small of Blaine's back. They tried to avoid being alone in empty houses for exactly this reason, because it was too easy to fall into the haze of  _oh, so so good_ and lose track of hands or forget to still frantic bodies.

Blaine was giving into it, fingers under Kurt's sweater and vest and tugging at his shirt where it was tucked into Kurt's pants, when his brain kicked in and he jumped away like he'd been burned. "I- sorry."

"No, don't be." Kurt was flushed, and turned his attention to straightening his clothes. Blaine took a moment to shuffle through his iPod until he found his dance mix; he needed to _move_ to do something with the tension curling in his body, and he supposed that dancing could work as well as making out. He bounced and spun, and felt himself start to settle when Kurt looked up at him.

"Do you think I'm boring?"

Blaine's heart skipped a beat, because Kurt was anything  _but_. "Are you crazy? You're the single most interesting kid in all of Ohio." And it wasn't a lie; Blaine had never met anyone with so much passion and so many interests and so much  _love_ as Kurt.

"I mean, like, sexually. We are playing it very safe by not granting our hands visas to travel south of the Equator." Kurt gestured wildly, and Blaine thought about the embarrassment of that summer afternoon when Carole had found them, and he knew that if they hadn't been so disciplined in the months since, things would be really different for them. Because wanting didn't always equate with  _ready_ , and Blaine was lots of things, but  _ready_ for sex wasn't one of them. Not when he was still muddling through life like he was a snake regrowing his skin.

"I thought that's what we wanted," he said, twirling across the carpet.

"It is. I'm just wondering, have you ever had the urge just to rip off each other's clothes and get dirty?" More hand-waving from Kurt, and Blaine let his eyes drift down Kurt's body.

Oh, yes, he'd thought about that very thing so many times, especially nights, alone, here in his dark room in his empty bed. Where Kurt was kneeling now. He spoke in a rush around the light embarrassment in his chest. "Yeah, but that's why they invented masturbation."

"It's pretty hot in this room, can we open up a window?" Kurt fanned himself, and tugged at his shirt collar and tie, and Blaine was seized by a sudden want to nibble at the tender skin under that collar and tie with his teeth.

He shook the idea away, and moved slowly, tentatively onto the bed next to Kurt. "Hey, I'm serious. We're young, we're in high school. And yeah, we have urges, but whatever we do I want to be sure that you're comfortable." He rubbed a gentle hand on Kurt's back. "So I can be comfortable. And besides, tearing off all of your clothes is sort of a tall order."

"Because of the layers?" Kurt's voice was teasing, because they've talked about Kurt's clothes the same way they've talked about Blaine's, and they both understand that Kurt's layers and Blaine's bowties and and loafers are about shields and masks and the things they  _want_ the rest of the world to see.

"Because of the layers," Blaine nodded, and he wasn't talking about clothes at all, because he knew that underneath the sweater and vest and button-down Kurt was a complex web of dreams and wants and so many things he thought he could never have. Blaine knew, because he was the same. He leaned in and kissed Kurt, pushing lightly against him until they were stretched out together and Blaine had tucked Kurt into the curves of his body. He ran his thumb gently over the back of Kurt's wrist and kissed the nape of his neck. "If you want," he whispered into the shadows of dusk in his room, "we can re-negotiate the no hands rule."

"Yes," Kurt whispered, voice full. "I want."

"Good," Blaine chuckled. "Because I want, too."

* * *

Blaine didn't want to have sex with Kurt just to say he had. He  _wanted_ it to mean something, to be special and beautiful, no matter what Artie thought it would do for his artistic performance. That said, it felt like he had a giant blinking sign over his head announcing  _virgin_ to the whole world.

Case in point: one Sebastian Smythe.

The kid was ballsy, more forward than Blaine was really comfortable with, but still. The attention, the shameless flirting, felt nice. The way that it made Kurt jealous, and the strength with which Kurt accepted Sebastian's challenge to go to Scandals, was completely hot.

Blaine was pretty sure that part of the reason his week was turning into such a train wreck was because while he and Kurt had decided on Monday to lift the no hands rule, they hadn't had time or space to so much as  _think_ about doing anything since then.

Blaine was jittery and turned on, and it was  _making him crazy_.

He knew better than to drink at the bar, even though Kurt was driving. He  _knew_ what happened when he tried to blot out his feelings with alcohol. What did he expect, really?

But Kurt was so warm, and so  _nice_ , and Blaine fucking loved him  _so much_  that it made it hard to breathe, and he just wanted to touch and taste and  _feel_. As rough and forward as Blaine was, grabbing and groping, Kurt gave right back, pushing and demanding and  _yelling_ , and Blaine wanted to shrink away because in an instant Kurt's daggers of words had sent Blaine right back into that place where he was bad and wrong and never going to be worthy of anyone or anything.

"I'm sorry," he ground out, tears in his eyes and his breath heavy and hot in the night. "I'm sorry for trying to be spontaneous." He turned on his heel so he didn't have to see Kurt's crumpled face.

"Where are you going?" Kurt was desperate, Blaine could hear it in his voice, but in that moment of alcohol-clouded pain, Blaine couldn't handle it.

"I'm going to walk home." He started across the parking lot, willing Kurt to follow him, hold him, keep him safe. To  _love him enough_ to not let him go. But all Kurt gave him was a plaintive wail of his name.

Blaine cried the whole walk to his house.

* * *

Showmance turned out to be a pretty valuable skill. It let Blaine muddle his way through breakfast with his mom, and six periods of classes  _and_ Glee, which was basically a study period that day because Artie didn't want everyone over-working their voices before the show that night.

Kurt barely spoke to him, and Blaine's heart broke a little bit more with each unsaid word and loaded stare.

He knew, of course, that it was all his own miserable fault.

The show was a blessing, because it allowed him to lose himself in Tony and forget about the way he'd messed up the best thing to ever walk into his life. His brain was quiet for the first time all day when he was onstage with Rachel, singing and dancing, and when it was all over there was only one thing left, the idea of  _Kurt_ lingering long after the auditorium had cleared out and the rest of the cast had headed off to Artie's afterparty.

Blaine needed to apologize, he knew that. But he needed to figure out what to say, so he lingered on stage, working through one of the dance steps that he still hadn't managed to conquer. He was getting frustrated with his inability to get it  _just right_ when he heard motion in the wings.

"Shouldn't you be celebrating?" Kurt sounded tentative, like he wasn't sure what to do or say.

"I'm going over this move. I messed it up tonight. I know I can do it better."  _Of course you can, you're not trying hard enough_ whispered a ghost of his father's voice.

"The beauty of the stage. You get to do it all over again tomorrow night. Personally, I thought both of you guys were perfect." Kurt's words were genuine, and generous, because Blaine knew that he and Rachel had both been holding something back during the performance.

"Thank you. Your Officer Krupke killed, brought the house down." God, Kurt had been amazing. His comedic timing was impeccable, and he'd managed to turn a caricature into a halfway-sympathetic character.

"Well, I can't help but pull focus, sorry." Kurt rolled his eyes and smiled lightly, brushing off the compliment, but Blaine knew he was secretly thrilled.

"Don't apologize, it was great." It was. It was so so great.

"All your friends were here tonight. The Warblers, Sebastian. They were all loving it." Blaine always liked the way Kurt tried to ask questions by making them statements instead, because it made Blaine feel more like he was being  _guided_ into answering rather than poked at with a sharp stick.

"Come here. Give me your hand, hold it to your heart." He paused for a moment, then reached for Kurt's hand.

"Just like the song?"

"Like the song." Oh, boy, was Blaine in trouble. He was awash in something that felt sweet and gentle and  _delicate_ , and he knew that if he didn't watch his step, he was going to break it. "Kurt. Sebastian doesn't mean anything to me. And you were right, our first time shouldn't be like that. I was drunk and I'm sorry." God, he was sorry. So so sorry.

"It sure beats the last time you were drunk and made out with Rachel." Kurt laughed, and that fact alone made Blaine grateful that they were  _both_ able to look back and laugh about his bumblings last spring. "But I'm sorry too. I wanted to be your gay bar superstar, but try as I might I'm still just a silly romantic."

Blaine's breath caught in his throat. Didn't Kurt know that his romanticism was one of the things Blaine  _loved_ about him? "It's not silly."

Blaine stilled as Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine's neck, and Blaine leaned close and kissed him, softly, on his closed mouth.

Kurt relaxed his whole body into the kiss and sighed heavily when he pulled bare inches away. "You take my breath away. And not just now. Tonight, on that stage, I was so proud to be with you."

"I hope so." Blaine felt his stomach flip-flop, because he wasn't sure  _anyone_  had ever been proud of him. At least, nobody but his mother had ever told him so. He was on the verge of crying when he looked at Kurt, feeling more open and honest than he had all week. "I want you to be." He wanted to spend his life making Kurt proud, because  _that_  feeling was amazing. "Um. Artie's having an afterparty at Breadstix. Will you accompany me?"  _Say yes_ , he willed.  _Let me have made this right._

"No." Oh. Blaine held his breath. "I want to go to your house."

_Oh_. "Okay."

_Okay._ Blaine took Kurt's hand and walked him through the wings to gather their things. They shrugged into coats and shouldered their bags, and walked hand-in-hand to the parking lot. "Meet me there?" Blaine said as he watched Kurt climb into the Navigator.

"Of course," Kurt said, a little gleam in his eyes.

Blaine's stomach dropped to his feet, and he tried not to skip back to his car once Kurt had pulled out of the parking lot.

* * *

"Are they gone overnight?" Kurt wandered the familiar confines of Blaine's room, running his finger over polished wood and trying not to be nervous.

"They won't be back till Sunday, some conference or something. My mom was really upset to miss the show, but my dad wouldn't let her stay home. Something about me  _making my choice_ when I transferred. Apparently I don't deserve their support at all now. Or something." Kurt could hear the puzzlement in Blaine's voice.

"At leas your mom wanted to be there. That's a start, right?" He was happy that Blaine's mom was starting to work her way back into Blaine's life.

"I guess. Will you get in trouble for being over here after curfew?" Blaine took his watch off and set it on his nightstand with a thunk.

Kurt shook his head. "No. Dad and Carole went down to Toledo for some campaign event, and Finn texted me something about Rachel." He shivered in amusement. "I'm not sure I want to know. But anyway, nobody will miss me. We-" he bit back the racing thoughts that were making him crazy.

"What?" Blaine looked at him with unabashed tenderness.

"We, um. We have all night, if we want it." Kurt caught Blaine's gaze and fell into it. "Please. Tell me you want it."  _Tell me you want_ _ **me**_. His words were a rough whisper, clouded with need and want and whatever had been simmering under his skin since Monday.

Blaine crossed the room in three steps and pulled Kurt into his body, hands gentle but fast at the back of his head, the buttons of his vest, mouth a little sloppy but still tender.

"I'll take that as a yes?" Kurt muttered into the side of Blaine's neck, and Blaine laughed at the puff of breath there.

"Yes." Blaine pushed at the vest, and Kurt didn't fight when Blaine let it fall on the floor at the bottom of the bed. "Not  _too many_ layers tonight."

"No," Kurt said, his breath coming faster at the tentative swipe of Blaine's fingers at the hem of his shirt. "On purpose," he gasped, Blaine's tongue working the spot just under his left ear that turned him to jelly. "No hiding." Christ, he couldn't even manage complete sentences.

Kurt felt Blaine pause for a second. His words were choked with emotion. "I've never been able to hide from you. God, Kurt. I've been crazy all week." He touched their foreheads together, and Kurt felt instantly cocooned and safe and  _whole_.

"I know. I know. Me, too." He huffed into the tiny space between them. "I think I forgot what it felt like to  _not_ be afraid of touching you."

Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt and pulled him close. "You feel so good. I didn't- I never- I can't even tell you. I thought I'd broken us, last night."

"No, baby. You didn't break us. It took me so long to get you, I wouldn't just let you walk away."  _I don't think I could live with myself_ , he thought, because the idea of losing Blaine made him feel physically ill.

"Kurt," Blaine said, soft and strangled. "I really, really want you." Blaine was working the buttons on Kurt's shirt, and Kurt just let him. "Want you in my bed.  _Please_."

Kurt breathed through desire and fear, and voiced the nagging doubt that had been lingering underneath all the other intense feelings. "Are you sure, that you want this?"  _That you want me?_

Blaine's eyes were wide. "Scared," he whispered. Swallowed. Nodded. The golden lamplight picked up and sparkled the matching flecks in his eyes. Kurt just stared and stared, because Blaine was  _beautiful_  when he was unguarded and honest. "But yes. I want this.  _Want_ _ **you**_ ," he growled, and that was all Kurt needed.

He was alive, then. On fire. Surging forward, bold because he was fueled by something bigger than the tiny trembling feelings of fear in his chest. He  _had_  to get Blaine out of that ridiculous pair of pants, wanted the slide of his hands on Blaine's chest as he lifted his shirt over his head. He  _wanted_ to feel Blaine against every inch of his body, and he couldn't get his hands to cooperate.

He felt clumsy, awkward, the way he had when the growth spurt had first hit, like he couldn't control his limbs. When Blaine growled in frustration after his third attempt at the button on Kurt's jeans, he realized he wasn't the only one having that problem. "Wait," he said, stilling Blaine's frantic hands with his own. "Relax."

Blaine just glared at him. "Button," he muttered, staring at Kurt's jeans and then gasping when Kurt popped the button himself.

He grinned back at Blaine. "Maybe we should take care of our own clothes," he said, thinking it would save them time  _and_ unnecessary aggravation. He kept his eyes on Blaine while sliding his jeans down his legs, stepping out of them and adding them to the pile with his vest and shirt. He contemplated his t-shirt and boxer briefs, but he was feeling a little cold and a little shy, even though Blaine's eyes were liquid heat. He climbed up onto Blaine's bed and settled against the pillows; Blaine started to follow him, but Kurt wagged his finger. "Nah ah, Romeo. Clothes. Off."

Kurt didn't think he'd ever seen Blaine move that fast. He heard the whisper of Blaine's pants and shirt joining his, mingling in a pile of cotton and silk, and then Blaine was next to him, warming his bare skin and raising goosebumps at the same time.

"You're so beautiful," Blaine whispered in his ear. "I can't believe you're here. With  _me_."

"I love you, Blaine," he breathed, his hands fast and seeking under Blaine's boxers and tank top. He was trying not to think too hard, because he knew what he  _wanted_  to do, but he knew that if he worried about it too hard then he'd be too nervous or scared or shy to do  _anything_ , and that was unacceptable. Instead, he closed his eyes and let himself feel,  _be felt_ , just the press and touch and taste of bodies and hands and mouths.

"I want-  _oh, god-_ " Blaine trembled, as Kurt's hand found him, hard and hot between them. Kurt stroked him twice, and Blaine shivered. "I'm not- can't wait-"

"It's okay," Kurt smiled into the kiss he placed on Blaine's shoulder, "we have all night."

Kurt stroked a third, fourth, fifth time, and Blaine was gone, shuddering under Kurt's fingers in a most delicious way. He held on to Blaine as best he could until Blaine had relaxed and ducked his head into the crook of Kurt's neck.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said, and Kurt could hear the embarrassment seeping out in his voice.

"Don't be, baby," Kurt said, his hand flat against Blaine's stomach. He felt himself blush. "That was really hot," he whispered.

"It felt, um.  _Amazing._ " Blaine shivered again, and Kurt tugged the throw blanket from the foot of the bed up over them. He could feel Blaine's hands moving, soft and tentative, along his arms and side and hip. "I think- I want-"

Kurt arched into Blaine's body, seeking contact. "What? What do you want?" He was trying to hold on, to  _wait_ , because he was so close to coming.

"Is it- can I-"

Kurt bucked into Blaine's hip, because it was  _there_. "Speak, Blaine."

"I want to go down on you."

_Oh_. "Please," Kurt was barely able to blurt out, but as soon as he did Blaine was almost frantic to slide Kurt's boxers down his legs, and Blaine's mouth was warm and _wet_  and his tongue was  _strong_  and it felt like nothing Kurt had ever expected. It was  _better_. And because Kurt had been burning slowly for close to a week, it was over  _way_  too fast. It seemed like only seconds before he was gasping, pulling away from Blaine's mouth and coming into the sudden cooleness. "Holy  _fuck_ ," he laughed as he trembled with aftershocks.

"I guess I don't have to ask if it was good for you," Blaine teased, sliding up his body and resting his head on Kurt's shoulder.

Kurt kissed Blaine's forehead, and trailed a finger through his sweat-dampened curls. "I don't think you'll ever have to ask."

"Good." Blaine's voice sounded rough and sleepy.

"Nap?" Kurt wasn't particularly tired, but he felt calm and happy for the first time all week and he just wanted to breathe in that moment for a while longer.

"Mmm. Just a little while? I'll set my alarm, and then we can get food. And then maybe? More of  _that_?" Blaine sounded almost embarrassed.

Kurt nodded into Blaine's hair. "Definitely more of that. We have all night."

* * *

All night.

It had seemed like more than enough time, before the nap and the Indian delivery and the food that they'd eaten right from the containers, passing it between them in the nest of blankets that was tangled all over Blaine's bed.

But once the food had been put away and all that was left of the night was hours of nothing but time and the sometimes gentle, sometimes frantic exploration of each other, Blaine thought that it could  _never_  be enough time. That there was never going to be enough time in the world to learn all he wanted to about Kurt, to show Kurt  _everything_  about himself. Blaine counted the hours in glances and touches and the slide of skin, and the countless ways that Kurt tumbled apart, made Blaine lose himself, the two of them clinging and falling, breathless and bright and  _god, it was like the best gift ever._

As night turned into early morning, they dressed themselves in odd layers of shared clothing and Blaine pulled Kurt down to the kitchen for pancakes, which they cooked and ate in silence and a perfect haze of more intimacy than Blaine had ever felt. "Leave the dishes," he'd waved at both the mess and Kurt's vague insistence that they really should clean up first.

"I don't care about cleaning up. Not when I can have more time with you," Blaine muttered as he ran his hands over the long-hidden curve of Kurt's bicep -  _where had_ _ **those**_ _muscles come from_ , he'd marveled earlier in the night - and then slid a hand down to grasp at Kurt's so that he could pull his beautiful boyfriend back upstairs and into his bed for a little longer.

"Mm. Tired," Kurt said, curling up on top of the comforter and facing Blaine, his socked feet brushing Blaine's bare ones.

Blaine slid his feet closer. "You're warm."

"You should wear socks," Kurt teased, his tone light and fond as he rubbed his thumb barely under the edge of Blaine's tank top.

Blaine closed his eyes and just  _felt_. Happy. Loved. Warm. Safe.

"You're beautiful, you know," Kurt whispered, reverently. " _All_ of your walls were gone. It was pretty amazing."

"It  _felt_ pretty amazing. Thank you. Was it- um." Blaine worried at his lip with his teeth. "Was it as scary as you'd thought?"

"No." Kurt shook his head. "Intense. Different. But no, not scary."

"Good." Blaine wasn't sure why he felt awash in relief, but he just went with it.

Kurt leaned closer and pressed their foreheads together. "You're not responsible for how sex makes me feel. Well. Other than the  _damn amazing_ part, that is. You know that, right? That you made me feel loved and special and incredible?"

"No," Blaine puffed into the tiny space between them. "I mean, I kind of guessed that you enjoyed yourself."

"It's also not all about me, baby. How do  _you_  feel?" Kurt was looking at him with gentleness and openness, and Blaine was  _so fucking in love_ in that moment that he almost couldn't breathe.

"Like you've seen the best and the worst of me, and I feel so lucky and grateful that you're still here." Blaine closed his eyes again, against the slightly raw feeling of  _too much honesty;_ he was suddenly afraid that he was giving up every last bit of his control. Trusting Kurt with everything that he was.

"We're in this together, Blaine." Kurt's voice and his touch were soothing balms against Blaine's nerves, and he relaxed enough to open his eyes. Kurt was looking back at him with something new, something Blaine couldn't identify but knew as  _just for him_. He leaned in and rubbed his nose against Kurt's.

"Eskimo kisses," Kurt sighed. "My mom used to do that with me, when I was little." He was quiet then, pensive. "I used to tell her everything. If she were still alive, I'd tell her about this. Us."

Blaine could hear the emotion in Kurt's voice, and he shifted so that he could hold Kurt tightly to his chest as he rubbed circles on Kurt's back. "I know." There was nothing to say, really.

"I miss her."

"I know that, too." Blaine felt Kurt's silent tears soaking into the cotton of his tank top. "You're okay. Just cry."

Blaine just lay there, breathing in the dark, holding Kurt while he cried himself to sleep. Blaine knew that it really had very little to do with Kurt's mom, because Blaine felt the same urge to cry himself. Not because anything was wrong, but from the sheer brilliant relief that something was finally so so  _right_.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Monday morning, Blaine felt like his world had realigned differently. His movements were a little bit looser, and he had to keep pulling back from touching Kurt, from wanting to unlayer his clothes to find the treasures of hard muscle and soft skin that Kurt kept hidden.

"You can't keep looking at me like that in public," Kurt laughed, pulling him into the Language wing boy's room when they passed in the hall after third period, Kurt heading from French to English, Blaine darting between History and Spanish.

"Like what?" Blaine tried to move Kurt into the handicap stall by tipping his head and kissing the side of Kurt's neck.

Kurt swatted Blaine's mouth away, and let his voice drift low and lusty. "Like you want to devour me."

"Mm. I  _do_ want to devour you." Screw Mr. Schue and Spanish.

"Not in public you don't. But what about my room, after school?" Kurt teased, his eyes flirty and his body fluid.

"Door closed and everything?" No way would they be able to get away with  _that_ for long.

"Mmm. Finn has an away game for basketball, and Dad and Carole are both working late, to make up for missing their weekend hours for that campaign thing. If we leave right after the last bell we'll have from 2:45 until at least 5:30." Blaine had to work to ignore the distraction of Kurt's pointer finger sliding up and down the back of his hand.

"Yes." Oh, God, yes.

"Good." Kurt leaned in and pecked Blaine's cheek before turning and bouncing out into the hall. "See you in Glee."

Blaine had to shake his head to clear it, and then splash some cold water on his face to cool down his burning cheeks.

He was late to Spanish.

* * *

Kurt wrapped his poncho a little tighter around himself as the door to the boy's room swung shut behind him. He'd been having a hard time all day, working to school his expressions and tighten the looseness he felt in his body. He couldn't afford to give anything of himself away now, because he wasn't just protecting himself, hiding  _his own_ wants and desires and pain under his clothes. Now he was doing the same for Blaine, for their collective secrets.

He knew, if he didn't cover himself with a facade of layers,  _everyone was going to know_.

He almost wanted them all to figure it out, to look at him and know that he was so loved and wanted. But it was too risky, because it was one thing to be accepted for being theoretically gay. But the actual being of gay, which involved things like having sex with one's boyfriend? Well. That was another story entirely. And as well-intentioned as the Glee kids were, he was pretty sure that the practicalities of Kurt-and-Blaine being  _gay together_ was a little beyond what they were all ready to deal with.

_Hold on_ , he told himself as he joined the throng of kids tumbling down the stairs to the first floor.  _Hold on until after school and then you can let all of this go and just_ _ **be**_ _with Blaine._

"Hey, baby," Tina called, sliding up next to him and sliding her hand into his. "We missed you at the after-show parties."

"Mm." He made a non-committal noise in his throat and just nodded his head as he stopped in front of his locker and twirled through his combination.

"Are you and Blaine okay?" Tina peered at him around the edge of his locker door, and he busied himself with trading his French book for his English binder and the falling-apart copy ofHeart of Darknessthat was the bane of his existence; he wasn't sure what was worse, the actual reading or the pain of trying to keep track of the pages that kept falling out as he read.

"Yeah," he muttered, stuffing his books into his bag. "We're fine." He slammed his door and cleared his lock, and fingered the edge of his poncho.

"Oh. Wait. Kurt-" Kurt could hear Tina's brain working. " _Wait_ ," she whispered, breaking into a huge smile and tugging Kurt around into the short hall that led to the home ec rooms. "Did you and Blaine?"

"Did Blaine and I  _what_?" He tried to be coy, but Tina was always almost  _too_ aware of others.

She smacked his arm lightly with the notebook she was carrying. "Sex, Kurt. Oh, my god, you and Blaine  _totally_ had sex. Was it awesome?"

Kurt wasn't sure how to answer, but his face was absolutely  _on fire_ , and he couldn't stop grinning. He leaned against the wall and rested his head there, and felt himself relax for the first time all day. "Yes. To all of it. Sex. Awesome. Why didn't you  _tell_  me that it changes  _everything?_ "

Kurt saw a light blush creep up Tina's cheeks. "I thought that was only me and Mike," she confessed. "I mean, it didn't seem to be that big a deal for the others. You, though?"

Kurt nodded and slid a hand under his poncho, holding the fabric out for Tina to touch.

She nodded knowingly. "It's a good way to hide it. I won't tell anyone, you know that. But I'm so happy for you guys."

Kurt wrapped her in a hug, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Thank you," he whispered into her ear, "for not making me feel like a freak."

"We're all freaks, baby. Doing the deed with your hot boyfriend doesn't make you any more freaky. Actually," she looked at him sideways, "I think it makes us  _less_ freaky."

She jumped when the warning bell rang, and Kurt resisted the urge to pull her into an empty classroom and just tell her everything, about how tender and careful Blaine had been, and how he'd never felt closer to another person or to himself. He wanted to know if it got less intense, if the constant  _need_  and  _want_  got easier to deal with. Because damn if his dad hadn't been right: now that he had done it, he wanted nothing more than to  _keep_ doing it. "I have to get to English," he said.

"Chem," she nodded. "But we're not done talking about this, are we?"

"No," Kurt said. "Lima Bean tomorrow before school? I'll buy you breakfast?"

"Perfect." Tina smiled at him and twisted the end of one of her pigtails between her fingers. "Be good to yourself," she said before she dashed off to class. Kurt just stayed there, against the wall, for another minute.

He was late for English.

* * *

"Tina knows," Kurt said, wrapping his arm across the planes of Blaine's back and trailing two fingers down the length of Blaine's spine.

"She's very intuitive," Blaine nodded, his sticking-up curls tickling the inside of Kurt's arm.

Kurt wiggled himself closer to the warmth of Blaine's body. "I'm buying her breakfast in the morning. We didn't have much of a chance to talk today. Pesky things like school and all."

"And too many people," Blaine said, his hands just casually roaming  _all over_ Kurt's bare skin.

"Yes. Too many people. Too much accidental touching." Kurt shivered at the thought of it, the crush and press of bodies in hallways and stairwells and brotherly hands on his shoulder, sisterly rubs of hands on his arms when the only person he  _really_ wanted to touch him was Blaine, who was still overly careful about touching Kurt especially within the halls at McKinley.

"At least we have empty houses?" Blaine sounded like he wasn't sure about  _something._

"Are you okay?" Kurt looked down and held Blaine's gaze, marveling at how clear Blaine's eyes were when they were just together, being themselves with each other.

"Yeah. I just- I want to make sure you're still okay with doing  _this_ , even if it means kind of sneaking around when nobody is home at either of our houses."  _When nobody is home at_ _ **your**_ _house_ , Kurt knew was going unsaid, because nobody was ever home at Blaine's house and they both knew it.

Kurt turned his head and smothered a laugh into his pillow. "I can't keep my hands off you, Blaine. What makes you even  _think_  that I'd want to  _not_ do this?"

"I just had to check." Kurt didn't need any more words than that to know that Blaine was feeling insecure. He wrapped his arms around Blaine, and just held on.

"I'm here. With you. I'm not going anywhere, okay?" He tried to modulate his voice into the soothing tones he used when he babysat the Rollins twins from across the street, who loved it when Kurt managed the occasional Rollins Parent Date Nights  _because Kurt likes to play tea party, Mommy_ , and who would have thought that it worked on teenage boys as well as three year old girls, because Blaine's slight shaking subsided and Kurt could feel the tension seeping out of Blaine's shoulders.

"I'm an awful lot of work," Blaine whispered, his breath soft and warm against Kurt's chest.

"No more than anyone else," Kurt said.

"You deserve more than what I can give you," Blaine tried again.

Kurt pulled back, settled a hand on either side of Blaine's face. "Are you trying to scare me off? Because it isn't going to work. What part of  _I love you_  and  _I'm not going anywhere_  are you not hearing? You are  _not_  unloveable, Blaine. You are smart and sweet and talented and  _so hot_. And you're here, in my bed in my room, and you are amazing."

Blaine shook his head and blinked his eyes, and Kurt thought that he saw the flickering of teardrops in Blaine's lashes, but couldn't be sure.

"You're so lucky," Blaine muttered, and yes, those were definitely tears. Kurt shifted onto his back and held Blaine the same way Blaine had held  _him_  on Saturday morning. "You have your dad, and Carole, and you have Tina to talk to. And I don't have  _anyone_."

Kurt ran soothing fingers through Blaine's hair. "You have me, and your mom, and my family." But Kurt knew that none of that mattered.

"I'm  _never_ going to be enough for him now." Blaine's words were bitter, pained.

"Your father? Why not?" Given what little Kurt knew about Mr. Anderson, he was pretty sure he  _knew_ , but he was  _also_  pretty sure that Blaine  _needed_ to talk this out.

"Because," Blaine said, sniffling into the tissue Kurt pulled off the nightstand, "now we've had _sex_. Now I'm  _really_ gay, like can't take it back gay. I'm never going to be straight, but I'm not even going to be enough of a man for him now, either."

"Why?" Kurt was trying really hard to understand. "Because you . . . because we . . ."

" _Because I liked bottoming,_ " Blaine whispered.

Oh. "Oh. Well. Not like I have a ton of experience or anything, but I honestly don't think that means anything about your masculinity."

Blaine just huffed roughly into the air.

"No," Kurt said. "You don't get to dismiss me like that. Have you ever heard the joke about being  _more of a man than you'll ever be and more of a woman than you'll ever get_?"

"No." Blaine sounded sullen and annoyed.

"Well. That's both of us, baby. Because trust me, there is nothing wrong with your manhood. You can't control what your father thinks of you, and what you do and don't like during sex isn't even his business. It's ours, just here, just between the two of us. So don't be too thinky about it, please. I just-"

"What?"

Kurt took a deep breath and thought for a moment. "I just wish that my loving you was enough to make you feel the way you deserve to feel about yourself."

Kurt felt Blaine's eyes flicker closed, felt him sigh heavily. "I wonder if I'm  _ever_ going to feel that way about myself."

* * *

Blaine ended up staying for dinner with Kurt and Burt, so it was after 8 when he pulled into his driveway at home. His dad's car was gone, but his mom's was there.

"I'm sorry," he started, the apology already halfway to his lips as he tumbled into the kitchen to the smells of beef stew.

His mom just waved him off. "You didn't know I'd be home. It's okay. Did you eat at Kurt's?"

"Yeah. I wish-" He ran a hand over his face, and tried to smooth a few of his curls that were a little unruly even after he'd dunked his head in Kurt's bathroom sink. "We just had pizza." He dropped his bag on a chair and moved closer to his mom, leaning against the counter while she stirred at the stove. "I love your beef stew."

She turned and smiled at him, warm and happy and so like the hazy memories in Blaine's mind that he wondered what had happened to the both of them over the years. "Do you think you might have room for a small bowl?"

Blaine let his eyes drift over the counter, taking in the loaf of Italian bread he could still kind of smell, yeasty and warm, and the butter that looked just right for spreading. His stomach growled lightly. "I'm a seventeen year old boy. I think one of the rules for that is that I get to eat a lot. So yes, I have room. Can I have the heel of the bread?"

"You always did like that part best," his mom said, reaching into the overhead cabinet and pulling down a plate and bowl.

"Because there's  _crust_ , and it's all crunchy. And,  _butter_." He kind of waved at the bread, and the butter.

His mom laughed, rich and full, and held the wooden spoon out for him to taste. "I guess you  _are_ seventeen."

When they were both seated, two bowls of stew and two plates of bread and butter, Blaine with a glass of milk and his mom with what turned out to be sparkling cranberry juice, she reached over and rested her hand on his arm. "Thanks for sitting with me," she said gently.

"You made me stew," he mumbled around carrot and potato.

"Your dad doesn't like it." She shook her head, and Blaine thought she sounded sad.

"You cooking in general or stew specifically?"

She just shrugged. "You know, I really have no idea anymore."

"I think- I wonder- I mean. When did Dad get so unhappy?" He'd wondered that, so much, so many times in recent years.

"I don't know," his mother said, dipping a chunk of bread into her broth. "I think maybe he's always been that way."

"I think I make it worse," Blaine blurted. "I think everything about me makes him mad or sad or, I don't know."

"Well." Blaine watched his mother, noticed her fighting something on her face and in her head. "I think that  _your father_  wishes that you were different. That you liked the same things he did, or wanted  _his_ kind of life. But Blaine-"

Blaine looked up from his bowl at her strong tone. "I want you to listen to me.  _Really_  listen, because your father isn't right. Okay?  _He isn't right_ , not about you. There is  _nothing_  wrong with you. Anything your father thinks? Those are  _his_ problems, not yours."

"I just don't know how to be good for him."

"Oh, Blaine. You don't need to be good for  _him,_ or for me. You just need to be good for yourself." Blaine knew the look in her face. He knew it was love because it was the same way Kurt looked at him and the way he felt when he looked at Kurt.

"I wish I knew how to do that, too."

* * *

The house stayed dark and quiet well past Blaine finishing his problem set for Math and his translations for Spanish. He had sent a goodnight text to Kurt on the south side of 10 pm, and then wandered his room, fiddling with his guitar, starting and stopping a dvd, picking up and discarding a book. He finally wandered down to the kitchen for a snack, and was headed back to his room when he saw that the light was still on and the door to the master bedroom was lightly cracked. He padded past his room to the end of the hall and knocked. "Mommy?" He peered around the edge of the door and into the room.

"What is it, baby?" His mom set down that massive hardcover she'd been reading, page by page for what seemed like forever.

"Kurt." He wasn't even sure what he was doing, or why.

"Are you two okay?" She patted the edge of the bed for him to join her, so he sat near the bottom and curled his flannel-clad legs under his chin.

"Yeah. We're really good, actually. We, um. We-  _crap_. I don't-"

"What's going on, Blaine?" Her voice was gentle but prodding.

"We, uh. We had  _sex_ , Mommy." Blaine wasn't sure why, but all the  _things_  that had been jamming his brain since Saturday were pouring out, and some of it hurt and some of it felt so good. "And it was so amazing, and scary, and I didn't think that I'd ever get to have this kind of a connection with someone.  _I thought that I was bad_ , for being gay. But how can I be bad if loving Kurt feels so good?  _How can_   _I be bad_?"

Blaine felt his mother shift, sit up, felt her arms around him and her hand against his hair like she used to touch him when he was little and scraped or bruised and hurting. "Baby. You're not bad. You're my perfect, brave boy."

"But Dad  _hates_ me. And the kids from the dance, and the kids at McKinley, the ones who elected Kurt as  _prom queen_  as a  _joke_  and who throw slushies on us, and the  _bigots_ on tv. Everyone is out there telling me that I'm wrong, or bad for wanting who and what I want." Blaine scrubbed at his face with his fists,

"Baby. You've never seemed to care what all those other people thought of you. Why now?"

"I've  _always cared_. Why can't anyone  _see_ that?" It felt like all the silence and slurs and insults and fists and boots that he'd stamped down for so long were just spilling out and he couldn't stop it. "Those things have  _always_  hurt, but I've always just dealt with it because what choice did I have? But now." He paused, took a breath, dabbed at the corners of his eyes with the hem of his t-shirt. "Now it's not just some theoretical thing. Now I'm  _really_  gay. And it's all more personal. More  _real_. It's not just my theoretical future life anymore, where I go off and learn to be gay in a big city somewhere. It's  _here_ , in Lima. It's my life  _now_. God." He took a tissue from the box his mom held out and blew his nose and dried his eyes before continuing. "I never thought I'd have this, in  _high school_ , and I don't want anyone or anything to mess it up."

"You love him." His mother wasn't asking.

"More than I ever thought was possible." Blaine thought about the past year, about the way  _everything_  had shifted for him the  _moment_  he'd met Kurt; about his denials and stupid stupid mistakes, and the peace he felt when they were together. "More than I knew I  _could_. Sometimes, I think he might be it for me."

His mother nodded, face set impassively. "You want to protect him."

"And myself." His mother smiled lightly at him, then.

"I remember," she said softly, running a finger over the ridge of her wedding ring. "I remember when I felt like that, with your father. It's really special, to feel that way for someone else. Just-"

"Just what?" Blaine shifted, dangling his feet over the edge of the bed.

"Just take care of yourself, okay? Don't lose yourself in Kurt to the point where you forget who  _you_ are." His mom tapped him on his knee, and then pulled him close for a hug. "Now, we should both go to bed. Okay?"

"Yeah." Blaine held on to his mother for an extra moment before moving to the door. "Thanks, Mom."

"Anytime, baby." Blaine closed the door behind him, and he knew that his mother meant it.

* * *

Kurt couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Blaine's usual goodnight text seemed distracted, and he'd been so lost that afternoon, but Kurt wasn't sure what to with any of it. Instead he read ahead in Heart of Darkness and checked his email and half-heartedly edited his NYADA essays for the tenth time before giving up and heading downstairs for some warm milk.

Carole was sitting at the table in her scrubs, paging through one of her knitting magazines and eating a bowl of leftover pasta. She looked up when Kurt slipped into the room, and she smiled at him through tired eyes.

"Can't sleep?" she asked, voice low.

"When can I ever?" He shrugged his shoulders and she nodded. They'd spent a lot of late nights in the kitchen or living room, sometimes talking and sometimes just sharing space. Kurt's stress-induced insomnia flared frequently, and Carole had told him over their first pot of warm milk that her sleep cycles were pretty messed up from years of working the odd hours of a trauma nurse.

"Blaine, NYADA, Student Council, or your dad's campaign?" All of them had been culprits recently.

"Blaine," Kurt said, pouring milk into the bottom of a pan and setting it on low.

Carole nodded at the chair across from her, and Kurt slid into it. "You know whatever you tell me is just between us."

"Yeah." Kurt did know that. He just wasn't sure what to say, or how to say it.

"Are things okay with you two?" Carole sounded gently concerned; Kurt knew she liked Blaine a lot.

"We're good." He looked at his hands for a second before he raised his eyes to meet hers. "Better than good, actually." He tried to hide everything he was feeling, but he was  _so bad_ at that, and Carole somehow was able to read him almost as well as his dad could.

" _Oh_ ," Carole gasped, realization crawling across her face. "Are you okay? It can be scary, the first time."

"I'm good. It's kind of embarrasing, actually." He felt himself blushing.

"What's embarrasing?"

"I just kind of want to  _touch him_. Like, all the time. Is that normal?"

Carole barked out a laugh, and nodded. "Yes," she said. "It is normal." She closed her eyes, and Kurt sat back and let her have whatever moment was going on in her head. "When it's new, and even when it's not. When you're in love with someone, it's perfectly normal to feel that way."

"I do love him," he said when Carole was back with him. "I didn't think- I never." He sighed, and waited for his brain to clear. "This wasn't supposed to happen to  _me_. Not here. Not _yet_. What am I supposed to do?"

Carole reached across the table and rested her hand on Kurt's forearm. "You know, I wasn't  _supposed_ to find your dad, or you, either. I thought, well, I had Finn, and I'd loved Christopher and lost him, and I'd made a good life for myself. And I was okay with that. And then this whirlwind of a boy chased after something he wanted." Kurt took a breath to interrupt, but Carole held a hand up to stop him. "It doesn't matter what your intentions were, Kurt. What matters is that the four of us found something we didn't know we were ready for, or that we even wanted. Love is like that sometimes. You can't plan for it, you just have to accept the gift when it comes."

Kurt poured his milk into a mug, added a dash of cinnamon and a splash of vanilla and stirred it before going back to the table.

"Blaine is pretty broken, you know," he blurted after taking a sip of his milk.

"I know. I can see it in him. How is  _he_ doing with the new part of your relationship?"

"Um." Kurt struggled to think of what to say without saying too much. "He's been really pensive. I think he's scared of how people are going to treat us if they know we're, um. Having sex."

Carole fixed him with a stare. "It's nobody else's business whether you two are having sex."

"I know. I think we both know. But he  _looks_  at me differently. And, you know," he waved his hands in the air. "I want to touch him  _all the time_."

Carole chuckled, and Kurt blushed  _again_. "The point is," he continued, "people are going to notice sooner or later."

"Maybe. Maybe not. But don't borrow trouble." She got up and rinsed her bowl, and then leaned against the counter to watch him. "You'll always remember your first love. If you're lucky, you get to keep him. Christopher was mine, you know."

"I didn't. But I know my mom and dad were high school sweethearts, too."

"They were. I see the way Blaine looks at you, the way you look at him. The way you are, together. Just hold onto that, okay? Don't let the rest of it poke at you yet."

"Cherish what we have, you mean?" Kurt ran his finger over the edge of his mug.

"Yes. Cherish what you have, and let it grow in its own time, its own way." Carole pushed off the counter and pulled Kurt out of his chair for a hug. "I wish I could build a bubble for you two, so you could just be without having to deal with all those idiots out there."

"That would be nice," Kurt muttered into the poly-blend scratchiness of her scrub top. "The other night, I told Blaine that I used to tell my mom everything, and that if she were alive I'd have told her about having sex." He felt Carole tense lightly under his hands, but he pressed on. "I'm happy I have you, Carole. Thank you, for being my mom tonight."

"Always, Kurt. Always."

Kurt didn't let her go until they were both finished crying.

 


	5. Chapter 5

"Blaine?" Blaine turned from where he was standing, staring out into the darkness from his bedrooom window, to see his father in his doorway.

"Dad."

"You should be asleep. You have school in the morning." Blaine rubbed his eyes and peered at his clock, but he couldn't make the numbers make sense.

"What time is it?"

"Late. Coming up on 2:30." Blaine could hear the disapproval in his father's voice, cool and far removed from concern over  _why_ Blaine was even still away at 2:30 in the morning.

"Mm. Sorry," he mumbled, and closed the curtain against the bare-limbed tree outside of his window. He crossed to his bed and sat down on the edge before peering at his father. "Do you even care about what might be keeping me awake?"

His father blinked and pulled back a little, closer to the hallway than to Blaine. "Are- are you okay?"

"I want you to ask because you're interested, not because you feel like you should." Blaine didn't mean to sound bitter, but he hadn't intended a lot of things about his interactions with others since he'd let go to Kurt on Friday night.

"Is it- um. Your friend?"

"God, Dad," Blaine sighed, shifting so that his legs were tucked under him. "His  _name_  is Kurt, and he's my  _boyfriend_ , and I  _know_  how you feel about that, so it's probably better that we don't talk about it at all. Because  _yes_ , it's about him. But it's also about  _me_ , and the way he makes me feel. Like I  _matter_ , Dad. Like I'm  _special_ , just by being myself."

"Blaine." His father ran a hand over his face, and Blaine really looked at him, at his rumpled suit and half-undone tie, and the trace of something more than fatigue in his face.  _Sorrow_ , Blaine thought, and chased the idea through neon-lit hospital corridors and and into operating rooms. "You matter. Why would you even-"

"Jesus. Do you really want to do this now?" Blaine was, suddenly, wide awake. "Because I can totally do this now, if you're sure you want to hear what I have to say."

Blaine's father waved his hand in a go-on gesture, and Blaine took a moment to gather himself. "Why would I think that I don't matter? Well. What  _else_  am I supposed to think, Dad? Nothing is ever good enough for you. I know I'm a disappointment,  _Blaine has trouble controlling his impulsive behavior, Blaine is sometimes disruptive in class, Blaine is a good student and natural leader, but sometimes struggles socially because of his inappropriate actions_. You think I haven't been reading what teachers have been writing about me since I was in Kindergarten? You think I haven't listened to you, every report card and parent's night,  _you have to try harder_ ,  _Blaine_?"

He stood, threw his arms out to his sides. "You think I haven't  _tried harder_  all this time? What do you think I've been doing my whole live besides trying  _harder_  to please you? _Nothing._ I've been doing nothing but letting you take me away from myself. And it's never going enough for you. But you know what? It's doesn't matter anymore. Because all the things you can't stand to look at in me are the things that Kurt loves. They're the things that make me interesting and more real than you've ever been."

Blaine tugged at his hair in an effort to pluck words from the soup in his brain. He cocked his head and looked his father square in his eyes. "I'm done with trying to be perfect for you, Dad. I can't do it anymore, because it hurts too much."

"If that boy is keeping you up nights, he can't be good for you." It was a half-hearted argument at best, Blaine could hear the defeat in his father's words. Whether it was from fatigue or an actual moment of true understanding, Blaine wasn't sure, and it didn't matter to him either way, anyway.

"He's keeping me up nights because loving him is terrifying and exhilarating, and I can't-" Blaine blushed, hot, and bit back the rest of his sentence because his dad  _definitely_ didn't want to know any of  _that._

"You can't what, Blaine?" His father used what Blaine thought of as his  _bossing the surgical interns_ voice.

Total honesty, he thought.  _It's best to get it all on the table_. "I can't do anything but be in the moment with him when he touches me, and it's the most real thing in the world. And I love him, and it's entirely possible that he's the boy who is going to become the man I'm going to marry." Blaine smiled, and thought about Kurt in his bed, in his arms, about the way he felt, breathless and grounded, when Kurt was inside of him. "That idea is scary as hell, because I wasn't supposed to meet someone like Kurt. Not  _here_ , and not at 16."

He wasn't expecting a flicker of something light and bright and fond to cross his father's features, or the way his father touched a finger to his wedding ring. "You can't control those things," his father said finally, voice soft in a whisper as he stepped into the room and pulled Blaine close in a hug.

Blaine stiffened, because his father hadn't hugged him in years. "I think this is the most honest you've ever been with me," his father said into his ear.

Blaine twisted away, wanting to feel  _something_ but still simmering with mild anger because his father was never going to get it. "I've been screaming at you for years. This might be the first time you've ever heard me."

He made a show of pulling his blankets down. "Goodnight, Dad."

Blaine watched his father back into the hall. "Goodnight, Blaine."

Blaine waited until his footsteps had receeded up the hall to the master bedroom before he turned his light off and rolled into the pillow he couldn't bear to change the case on, because it smelled like Kurt. He breathed, focused and steady, until his brain and body settled, but he didn't fall asleep until close to dawn.

* * *

Kurt balanced his scone and Tina's breakfast sandwich, and their two drinks, and picked his way through the pre-work, pre-school crowd at the Lima Bean to the small table way in the back that Tina had selected. He felt bleary-eyed and a little on edge, because even after his talk with Carole he hadn't fallen asleep until close to 2 am, and while he really wanted this time with Tina, the last thing he wanted was the school day that was going to follow.

"So," Tina said, stripping her fingerless gloves off her hands and stuffing them into her coat pockets, "you look like you had a rough night."

"Perceptive," Kurt quirked an eyebrow at her and smiled. It felt tense on his face, and he tried to relax.

"Are you sure you and Blaine are doing okay?" Tina busied herself with her sandwich, and wouldn't look at Kurt. "I kind of freaked out a little after our first time. Not because it was bad or anything, because it wasn't. It was just a lot, you know?"

Kurt nodded, picking at his scone. "It's been kind of intense, for both of us. In a completely amazing way, really."

Tina smiled and rested a hand on his wrist. ""You  _know_ , don't you?"

"Know what?"

"That it's the real thing. With Blaine." At Kurt's sharp intake of breath, Tina just laughed. "It's okay. It's like that for Mike and I, too. We don't talk about it a lot, because it's kind of scary knowing that when we're so young. But it's there. And I've seen you and Blaine together. You have it, too."

"Yeah," Kurt breathed. "I told Carole last night, but I haven't said a word to Blaine."

"Trust me," Tina said around a sip of coffee. "He already knows."

* * *

Blaine was sitting on the wall by the courtyard Tuesday morning, waiting on Tina and Kurt and trying to work ahead in his English reading, cursing his contact lenses and wishing he'd given in to the lure of his glasses with every blink when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

_Had a bad night. Skip with me?_

Blaine typed his response quickly.  _Yes. Bad night, too._

He stuffed his A Tale of Two Cities into his bag and wrapped his scarf around his neck, and was halfway to his car when his phone buzzed again.

_Carole home. Your house?_

Blaine texted as he walked, itching to at least get off campus before the first bell.  _Yes. C U there, 15 mins._

Kurt was already there when he pulled up, leaning against the rear bumper and looking like he hadn't slept a minute. Blaine wanted to wrap him up and make him talk about it, but the air was cool and the wind was on the edge of biting, so he just led Kurt into the house. He barely had the door closed when Kurt was on him, in his arms, clinging. Nothing else, just pressing himself against Blaine, wool and cashmere and the sharp tang of his aftershave, and Blaine was clinging back just as hard.

"Don't let me go," Kurt said into Blaine's coat.

"Never," Blaine gasped, suddenly overly hot and feeling closed in with his coat and scarf and backpack still on his shoulder. He kissed gently on Kurt's cheeks, fluttering over his closed eyelids and the tip of his nose before pulling away.

"Let me- we should-" Blaine dropped his backpack with a thunk before shedding his coat and scarf and letting them fall on his backpack in a pile. "What's going on?" he asked while Kurt did the same with his coat.

"Like I said. Long night. I didn't sleep much. I was, um." Kurt ran an awkward hand through his hair. "I was worried."

"About?"

"You. Myself. Us." Kurt rubbed his hand over his face and looked back to Blaine.

"What about us?" Blaine felt his stomach flip-flop in sudden panic.

"Nothing bad. God, sorry. Nothing bad, baby. I promise." Blaine reached for Kurt's hand, and he was surprised to find it cool and slightly damp.

"C'mere," he said and pulled Kurt over to the couch with him. He leaned against the arm and settled Kurt between his legs, pulled the fleece throw from the back over the both of them, and wrapped Kurt in his arms. "What's going on? And why did you want to skip today? You  _never_ skip."

"It was just too real. School. All those people. I just needed  _you_." Kurt snuggled into Blaine's arms and sighed happily. "Why did you agree to skip? You never skip either."

"I had another fight with my dad last night." Blaine let his head fall back against the arm of the couch, and tried not to focus on the gentle sweep of Kurt's thumb across the back of his hand.

"About me, again?"

"No. Well. Kind of. But mostly about me." Blaine laughed harshly. "I told him  _everything_ , all the ways he hurts me and all the ways you heal me, and he said he thought I'd never been so honest."

"You've been nothing  _but_ honest with your father. What did he think your coming out was?" Kurt's voice was tinged with frustration, but Blaine knew it had nothing to do with him.

"I don't know. But I told him he just hadn't heard me before. I doubt it's going to change anything, but it felt good to put everything out there."

"Yeah." Kurt's thumb stilled, and Blaine felt him relax into the cocoon of the throw around them. "Is it okay if we take a nap?"

"I think I'd like that," Blaine said, blinking his gritty eyes and yawning. He had so many things he still wanted to say to Kurt, but none of that mattered in that moment. All he cared about was being safe and warm and  _home_ with Kurt.

* * *

Kurt's neck was tight and his left arm was asleep, and he was pretty sure that Blaine's elbow was poking into his ear, and he couldn't quite figure out what had jarred him awake until he felt his phone buzzing and ringing out "Little Pink Houses" in jeans pocket.

He scrambled to pull it out, trying not to wake Blaine, and he knew he sounded breathless when he answered.

"Dad."

"Kurt." His dad sounded short, annoyed. "Why the hell aren't you at school?"

"I take it someone in the office was paying attention for a change." He let his voice drip with contempt.

"I'll ask you again, kid. Why the hell aren't you at school?" Kurt could hear the noise of the garage in the background.

"Blaine needed me. He had another fight with his dad last night. And I didn't have a spectacular night myself. Tired." He yawned for emphasis, and tucked his phone against his shoulder so he could sit up and stretch.

"Dammit, Kurt. You- you could have  _asked_. Told me, and I would have excused you, I hope you know that." Kurt could almost hear his dad fiddling with his ballcap. "You never skip. Even the worst times, you've  _always_ gone to school. I just- you scared me. When the office called, I thought-"

"Dad! God, Dad, I didn't think." And he hadn't. The bad days were so far from his thoughts these days that he never paused to wonder what it would be like for his dad to get a call asking after him, from the place that had been supposed to keep him safe and had failed at every turn. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I just. I needed to rest. And to just be here, with Blaine. Tell me you understand."

"Yeah, kid. I do." His dad sighed. "Now. What's going on with that boyfriend of yours? Do I need to have a talk with his dad, because this has been going on since before the two of you even got together, and it needs to stop. For Blaine's sake."

"I don't know, Dad.  _I_ don't think it would hurt, but I also don't know what it's like to live here. I don't want to make things worse." He got up and padded into the kitchen, pulled down two mugs and set the tea kettle on the stove. "Blaine won't say so, but I think some of the conflict is over me."

His dad barked a short laugh. "I suspect that it wouldn't matter, Kurt. I don't think Blaine's father would be happy with  _any_ boy."

"Yeah, you might be right about that." Kurt dropped a chai bag and two spoonfuls of sugar into each mug, and leaned back against the counter to wait for the water. "I guess, if you want, you could call. Who knows. Maybe you can help."

"I'd like to. Help, if I can. He's a good kid. The two of you are good for each other. But he and I might have to have words if I catch you two skipping again.  _Ask_ , next time."

"Thanks, Dad."

"You two make sure to come home for dinner tonight." Kurt heard tools clanging, and the faint sound of raised voices. "Gotta go, kid."

"Bye, Dad," he said, but the call was already dead.

"How much trouble are you in?" Blaine's voice was rough with sleep, and he was leaning against the door frame rubbing at his hair.

"None that I can tell. My dad just freaked when the office called."

"Shit." Blaine's face went pale. "I figured nobody would notice. My dad-"

"Don't worry yet. And about your dad." Kurt pulled the kettle off the stove and carefully filled the mugs halfway. "I think. Um. I think my dad wants to talk to him."

Blaine shook his head and dropped into a kitchen chair. "No. He doesn't like people in our business, especially about things like me."

Kurt knelt down in front of Blaine, a hand on each of his knees. "You're not a  _thing_ , Blaine. You're his son, and he shouldn't be able to treat you like you don't exist." Kurt felt his stomach twist. He  _hated_ the way Blaine was after one of these fights, like all the life was just gone from him. "I think my dad just wants to feel him out. He's pretty good with people. He won't make it worse."

"Somehow I doubt that." Blaine's words were flat, dejected.

"I have to trust him, Blaine. He's my father. And he loves us both."

"How do you know?"

"Because he told us to come home for dinner tonight." Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand and smiled. "It'll be okay. Trust me."

"I do." Blaine squeezed back, and his smile was strained. But it was a smile. It was a start.

 


	6. Interlude: Parental Units

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Few notes: this is my backstory for all of the parents involved. The Russian is the best I can approximate, phonetically, so if you're more fluent that my two years of college Russian left me, don't hate me. I messed with Finn's dad's timeline for two reasons: I couldn't get it to fit into what the characters wanted, for one, and the other is that someone on the Glee writing staff didn't do their math. Because the Gulf War, the actual fighting part, was January and February of 1991, and if Finn had been born with enough time to spend time with his father, he would have been born in fall, 1990. Which would make him 21 this year, and that is just not right. So read with a grain of salt, please, and don't hate me for messing with canon. Also, if you don't feel like reading this chapter, I won't be offended.

Catherine sat, staring and unseeing, at her computer. She had turned her phone off at noon, the way she did every day before retreating to the HR break room with her book and her yogurt and rice cakes. But she hadn't been able to even leave her desk, she was so tired. She'd been up well into the early hours of the morning after talking with Blaine, and she'd pretended to be asleep when Kent had rumbled into bed after 3 am. Pretended that she hadn't heard every last word and accusation of his fight with Blaine.

Pretended that she was invisible, expendable.

Wondered, as she'd listened to Kent snoring lightly next to her, how she had ended up  _there._

She'd been raised on secrets and silence, had been the thing. They fit her well, settled into her with every breath, as well they should have since she'd been living them since she was a baby.

_Yekaterina_ , she remembered.  _Katya_. Grandparents who spoke to her in fragments of Yiddish and Russian until the day she'd raised sleepy, little girl arms to her father and said  _dobre utra, papa_ as the morning sent sun into her room.

When she went to dinner at a friend's house one Friday night late in elementary school, there were Shabbat candles and prayers, vague things that sounded familiar to her ear but she couldn't quite trace, couldn't match up with the cross her mother wore like it was burning her and the Sunday church services that felt like a prison.

When she'd asked her mother, she'd gotten a smack on her cheek and a scolding. "You'll understand when you're older, Catherine."

So she'd waited, piecing her history together from fragments and assumptions until finally, she'd asked outright on the eve of her 14th birthday.

"Why are we pretending to be Catholic?" It wasn't the right question. She'd spent dinner with  _we're Jewish, aren't we_ on her tongue, but she hadn't been able to force the words out.

"It wasn't safe," her father said. "Your grandparents survived because they hid. And your mother and I, well. We didn't have a real choice. So you have to understand, Catherine. This is the way things are now."

"What's our real last name?" Because there was no way that  _Simmons_ was it.

Her father twirled some spaghetti onto his fork, and heaved a deep sigh before giving her mother a pointed look.

"Schwartzman," her mother said, and Catherine let her real name echo in her brain.  _Katya Schwartzman._ She liked it.

"It's time you knew," her father said, "but that means it's your secret to keep now, too."

And she had, through high school and into college. It was like breathing to her, easy in a somewhat uncomfortable way that she didn't think about too much.

One September day when she was 19, she stopped thinking about it at all, because she settled into her seat in Biology lecture and accidentally elbowed the boy who sat next to her. She fell over herself in apology, but the way he crinkled his eyes and asuaged her fears that she'd hurt him made her catch her breath.

Kent Anderson was smart and funny, and Catherine never really knew why he'd decided to pursue  _her_ , because he dressed well and drove a nice car, and she had a work-study job filing in the Registrar's office and had to take the bus home for breaks because she couldn't even afford the train.

She knew, though, that she pretended well, and in the long run all that seemed to matter to Kent was that Catherine was also smart and funny, and even though she didn't  _like_ to party with his friends she sure acted like she did. She didn't let her fear show the first night he took her back to his room, or the first time she visited him at his parent's summer house. She acted like she hadn't overheard his parents' whispers in the kitchen her last night there, their musings over whether she was good enough for Kent, whether she'd hold him back.

She loved him, so she promised herself that she would never hold him back.

When the time came to take their MCATs, Catherine feigned a lack of funds even though she'd been squirreling money away since freshman year, because the idea of spending four years or more at different medical schools left her unable to breathe. Instead, she sent Kent off to the exam and planned her next move, because she was never going to be a doctor.

Kent's parents paid for their apartment in Cambridge, and his uncle set Catherine up with a job in the English department, doing scheduling and filing and copying endless numbers of course packets.

She hated every minute of it.

On some level, it had been a blessing when Kent was matched for his internship so far away from both of their families. She looked forward to the new start, even though Kent railed around the apartment for days, waving his match letter and cursing about  _fucking Ohio_. Catherine had soothed him the best way she knew how, laying herself open and letting Kent have his fill.

The morning of his graduation, she was sick three times before she made it out the door to the ceremony. The next morning, the test came back positive. She was six weeks pregnant on their long-planned wedding day, the day before they drove the U-Haul to Columbus for Kent's internship, but she wasn't showing and she added the baby to the list of secrets she kept.

Kent hadn't seemed surprised when she finally told him on the dark stretch of highway leading into Columbus, but he also hadn't seemed happy, so she vowed to prove to him that he could be a medical student  _and_ a father.

She taught Blaine early how to be silent, how to be invisible.

It was, after all, the thing she knew best.

**

Burt Hummel had lived in Lima his whole life. Every pocket of town was a part of him, steeped into his memories. Lima had shaped him, for good  _and_ for bad, and there was no way he could hate Lima for any of it.

He'd thought, once, about getting out. About joining the army or driving a long-haul truck, or finding someplace else to share the skills he'd learned at his father's elbow, because _every place needs a good mechanic, Burt_. But he never looked too hard, because life in Lima kind of suited him, and he got to play football at the junior college, until his second year when he busted out his knee in October, and then his dad died in the cold stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and he was the only Hummel who knew his way around the garage.

He'd still been on crutches and that goddamned knee brace, fucking  _sitting down_ to work on engines, when Liz had pulled into the parking lot, muffler belching smoke and rattling like a drum line.

He'd given her a fair estimate after seeing the OSU-Lima sticker in the back window and the battered child development texbooks with orange USED stickers on the spines littering the backseat, and when she'd balked at the price he'd sighed and offered to do it for cost.

"What's the catch," she'd asked, leaning against the driver's door and eyeing him suspiciously.

"No catch," he replied, shaking his head and trying not to blush. Because she was pretty, and seemed sweet, and even if she was attending OSU-Lima, she wasn't  _from_ Lima because Burt didn't know her and she clearly didn't know him. "Just- maybe when I'm out of this stupid brace and can walk again, you'll let me buy you a coffee."

She'd fiddled with her necklace and looked away. "Seems you should let me buy  _you_ a coffee, since you're going to fix my car for cheap."

"I guess that means we'll have to go out twice." He didn't expect her to agree, but she had.

Liz was smart, and she seemed more aware of the world than Burt was. But he liked that she was maybe even more of a baseball fan than he was, and that she liked beer on football Sundays, and that she would sing in the shower on the nights she stayed over. She had a wicked sense of humor, and there was nothing reserved about her. Burt liked the way she made him feel, like he didn't need to be quiet and focused all the time. Like it was okay to have fun.

Valentine's Day of her senior year, she called him crying from the bathroom of the elementary school where she was student teaching. "I'm pregnant," she whispered, and Burt had felt something click into place inside him, like all the scattered pieces of himself had coalesced into  _husband_  and  _father_.

He called in sick to work, and drove down to Dayton to buy a ring. They were married in March, the two of them at City Hall, and they set to work getting ready for the baby. A boy, the doctor told them, due in October.

_A son_ , Burt thought every day. He'd take him to ball games, and to the garage, and teach him from the time he was old enough to hold tools, the way Burt's father had taught him.

But almost from the start, Kurt had been different.  _It's not unusual,_  Liz said when Kurt was three and got into her clothes and makeup.  _He'll grow out of it_ , the pediatrician said at Kurt's four year old checkup when they had to pull Kurt away from the baby dolls in the waiting area.

"I want a pair of thenthible heelth," Kurt lisped, handing Burt his birthday wishlist over breakfast one morning.

"I don't think he's growing out of it," he told Liz that evening, after Kurt was in bed.

"I think you're right," she said, resting her hand on his. "And I think we need to be on the same page. We need to be  _okay_ with whoever he grows up to be."

"He's my son, Lizzie. I  _love_  him. Nothing could change that." Burt never hesitated, because it was the God's honest truth. He might not understand it, but he  _loved_ that little boy so much he thought his heart would burst.

"I didn't expect anything less from you, Burt Hummel," she'd said, smiling, as he kissed her.

Burt had fought for a lot in his life. He'd fought for Liz after what they thought was a pregnancy was actually cancer. He fought for himself, in the bleak months after her death, and he fought for Kurt, every day. He didn't think, now that he'd battled through, that he'd  _ever_ stop fighting for Kurt and kids like him.

Which was why this crap with Blaine's father was pissing him off so badly. Blaine was a good kid, polite and smart and  _damn_ if he didn't make Kurt so blissfully happy. Burt thought that any parent would be proud to have a kid like Blaine.

But there were still a lot of things Burt didn't understand, which was why he was sitting on hold, giving up his lunch break to muzak in the hopes that he'd catch the elusive Dr. Kent Anderson in his office.

**

Carole liked the afternoons after a night shift, the way the house was still and silent when she woke up, and the idea of having a handful of hours to herself before the boys and Burt came home, filling the space with bodies and noise and the kind of chaos that came from too much testosterone.

She puttered around when she got up just shy of noon, fixing tea and then taking it with her on her rounds of  _shower-laundry-lunch_ before settling on the couch with the book Kurt had picked up for her at the library last week. "Blaine's mom likes these," he'd said, handing her a thick paperback that promised time travel and romance, and really, Carole wasn't going to turn down the promise of hot Scottish men in kilts. She may be married, but she wasn't dead.

She'd always loved romance novels; she suspected now that it was a habit born of needing the escape from being the only girl in a house full of four older brothers. But no matter the reason, every Saturday she'd take the bus to the library and check out a stack, take them home, and lose herself in tales of endless love and happily ever after, the most adult of fairy tales. And the stories were just that to Carole, fairy tales. Because she was a pretty smart girl, and she knew that not everyone got their prince.

Girls like her, they never got their prince or the magic life that came with it. Girls like her, daughters and sisters of cops and firefighters, grew up to marry cops or firefighters and stayed home and had babies and hosted clans for post-church Sunday dinners. But Carole wanted more than that, so the day after her high school graduation, she took her carefully saved years of allowance and money she'd been sent for birthdays and Christmases, First Communion and Confirmation, and hopped the bus to New York City. She had a scholarship to the nursing program at CUNY, and a friend from high school had a cousin who lived in the city, who needed a sixth girl to split the rent on a two-bedroom on the edge of Harlem.

She loved the city. Loved her classes. Loved her jobs, afternoons as a nanny for a 6 year old girl on the East Side and weekends scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. She called home once a week, made small talk with her mother, but she never went back to New Jersey.

She met Christopher in the park on a Thursday in April, while Maddie was busy chasing her school friends around and up and down the slide. He had a map, and if that hadn't marked him as an outsider, his courteous  _excuse me, miss_ certainly would have.

"Better be careful," she said, taking his map and turning it right-side up before marking their location with the pen she always kept tucked into her bun. "You scream innocent newbie, and not everyone is as nice as I am."

He smiled at her, a wide grin that lit up his face. "You might be all the nice I can handle," he said, sticking out his hand. "Christopher Hudson."

"Carole Flaherty."

"Well, Carole Flaherty. I'm here in the city till Monday. Can I take you to dinner?"

Over cheap Chinese in Midtown, he told her he was in the city on leave, after completing his Basic and Advanced Infantry Training in Georgia. "I'm headed to Fort Drum," he said, scooping fried rice onto his plate. "I'd like to see you again, but it seems some girls are afraid of Army men."

"You're not a cop, firefighter, EMT, or a medical student or intern," Carole said, waving her egg roll in the air. "Army is a step up as far as I'm concerned."

He was embarrassed after almost snorting soda out of his nose. That almost sold her right then. But when he picked up the check  _and_  walked her home  _and_ asked before pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek, she was pretty well gone.

Things built slowly, letters and phone calls and the too-rare weekend visits, but it wasn't a surprise to her that they tumbled into bed together in a smoke-hazy hotel room outside of Albany over Fourth of July weekend.

They were nervous with each other, careful, because Carole had been a genuinely good Catholic girl despite her otherwise rebellious nature, and Christopher had lived in small-town Ohio until Christmas, and to hear him tell it there hadn't been a whole lot of girls chasing after the second-string quarterback and honor student.

They'd been lost in each other, and Carole hadn't thought too much about anything until she'd noticed the untouched strip of condoms on the bedside table.

Even then, she didn't think about it again until the heat of August, when she was caring for Maddie all day long and couldn't stomach the smell of the chicken nuggets she cooked up for Maddie's lunch.

She was a nursing student.  _Of course_ she was pregnant, she only needed her calendar and her rebellious stomach to tell her. She was also still a good Catholic girl at heart, but one who had a rebellious streak. There was no question. Her mother would be saying novenas if she knew.

"I'm pregnant," she whispered into the phone when Christopher called her on Friday night, like he always did. "And I'm keeping it. If you don't want anything to do with me, that's fine. I'll do it on my own."

"Carole," he said, and she could hear him crying. "Marry me."

Christopher was so handsome in his uniform, and Carole wore a sundress she'd bought at Goodwill. One of his Army buddies and one of her roommates stood as witnesses, and they'd had a picnic in the park afterwards. Carole had nibbled a turkey sandwich and sipped at some sparkling cider before sending Christopher back to Fort Drum on the late bus.

She finished out her fall semester of school before moving up to the base with Christopher, where they shared a postage stamp apartment in a building with other young enlisted families. The other wives offered Carole maternity and baby clothes, and help finding an OB and a pediatrician. She grew into her love for Christopher in those months, just as she grew into her love for the baby, even when he kicked all night long. Sometimes, it felt like he was drumming on her ribcage, and she wondered if his tiny fists against her bones sounded like anything from inside her body.

Finnegan Seamus Hudson was just like his father, smiles and eyes and gentle-natured, even from his first day. Christopher loved the baby, to the point where Carole never had to worry about caring for him at night. Christpher carried Finn everywhere in the evenings, bathing him and singing to him, and walking him when he fussed, bundled against the cold in a snowsuit and a pile of blankets in the stroller. Those nights, Carole would watch  _her two men_ , as she called them, and think of the romances she'd read as a girl.  _Maybe, girls like her_ _ **did**_ _get their happy ever after_.

The crash happened in wind-blown snow, some kind of a night training exercise gone terribly wrong, and Christopher and the pilot and two other men had been killed. Carole cried for three days, and then went downstairs and retrieved Finn from the neighbor who'd been keeping him. She packed up the apartment and went to the only place she could: Christopher's childhood home in Lima, Ohio.

She'd finished nursing school there, worked days and put Finn in the hospital's childcare until he went to school full-time. She put everything she had into raising Finn, into making a life for herself and her son, and if she had to do it in Ohio, so be it.

And then this slightly awkward elfin boy grabbed her elbow in a crowded classroom, shoved her in front of his father. Carole Hudson, meet Burt Hummel. Dead spouses, small talk over generic cookies and watery punch. Eyes that knew sadness and work, and getting by as best you could.

It didn't take Carole long, but she  _was_ a hopeless romantic, after all.

It turned out that girls like her sometimes got  _two_ princes.

And if her second round at happy ever after came with a stepson  _and_ his boyfriend, well. Carole knew how to handle boys. She had grown up with all those brothers, after all.

**

Kent hated feeling out of control, feeling less than perfect. It had been his whole life, after all. The right camps, the right schools, perfect grades and attendance and behavior. Manners that left adults telling him  _what a polite young man_ and his parents beaming with pride.

He didn't know  _how_ to be any way else.

Which was why it was so hard to watch Blaine unraveling in front of him. He thought, maybe, that he was jealous of the way his son bucked every constraint Kent tried to place on him, but most of the time it just left him feeling uncomfortable because he didn't  _understand_  it. None of it, the restlessness at school and Blaine's relentless need for music, and the way he spoke up, with a true confidence that Kent only recognized because of his own carefully constructed  _false_ confidence.

Kent had known for years that Blaine hated him. That Blaine only wanted his approval. But Kent simply didn't know how to give it because all the things he'd learned were  _good_  and _right_ and  _perfect_ were things Blaine struggled with.

And Blaine being gay? Well. That was the most unacceptable thing of all. Oh, Kent knew logically that it was nothing Blaine could change, but that didn't stop him from wanting Blaine to do this  _one thing_  right. Because a wife and children? That  _was_ something Kent could be proud of.

Instead, Kent got Kurt, a flamboyant boy with a mechanic father. A boy who left Dalton for  _public school_ , who urged Blaine to do the same. Who was pulling the promise of a perfect son away from Kent with every day.

Kent didn't know what to do with that, what to do with the fight he was never going to win but that kept creeping out at him when he was least prepared for it.

_I've been screaming at you for years_ , Blaine had yelled at him at the end of things.  _This is the first time you've ever heard me_. But Kent knew that he  _hadn't_ heard Blaine.

He had learned one thing, though. When Blaine climbed into bed, when his  _son_ had dismissed him, Kent knew he'd succeeded on one area. He'd taught his son to be aloof and distant.

And that was something else he could be proud of. It told him that Blaine  _was_ like him after all.

That pride had settled him, allowed him to be calm and patient and caring with the post-op patients he saw in his office twice a week. He breezed through his morning appointments, grabbed a coffee and a muffin from the lobby cart, and breezed back into the office for his afternoon appointments when Gina, his secretary, called out to him.

"Doctor, I have a Burt Hummel holding for you on three. He refuses to leave a message."

Kent paused and took a sip of his too-hot coffee. "I'll take it inside," he nodded to her and slipped through his door.

"Mr. Hummel? Kent Anderson." He unwrapped the paper on his muffin and broke it into pieces.

"Mr. Anderson. I wanna talk to you about our boys."


	7. Chapter 7

Burt listened to the silence on the other end of the phone, for long seconds before Anderson finally spoke.

"Yes. They are, um. Close." Burt listened to Anderson stammer, like the boys were best friends or something.

He almost slammed the phone against the edge of his desk in frustration, but he  _needed_  to do this, for all of them. "Blaine's a good kid, and I don't know what goes on in your house but whatever it is, it's affecting them both."

"That's family business," Anderson said coldly, "between my son and my wife and I."

Burt hesitated, thinking about the conversation he'd had with Kurt, and the things he'd seen these past months. He knew he was making assumptions, but he knew what love and committment looked like, and even if the boys didn't realize it yet,  _he_  did.

He took a deep breath. "Kurt is Blaine's family, too. And Blaine is part of our family. And  _nobody_  pushes the Hummels around. I don't care if you're Blaine's blood. You're not doing right by that boy. You're  _hurting_  him, and you're the only one who can't see it."

"I think," Anderson ground out, "that you're overstepping here."

Burt  _hmphed_  into the phone, remembering Blaine in the garage, awkward and too forward but  _so full_  of caring. "That's usually Blaine's territory, but I'll take that as a compliment if I'm nearly as good at it as he is."

"Let me apologize for my son's behavior. It's a problem with him. If he just worked harder . . .."

"Wait.  _Apologize?_ " Burt was up, ready to storm around his office, but he was tied to his desk by the phone cord. "What are you apologizing for? Blaine hasn't done anything wrong."

As soon as he spoke the words, Burt  _understood_  like a flash. He didn't  _need_  to hear Anderson's response, but he listened anyway.

"Blaine doesn't understand how to behave appropriately. Socially, I mean. It's something he's always struggled with, but it's gotten worse since he- well. Told us about the boys."

"Jesus Christ, I can't believe I'm listening to this." Burt shook his head and reigned his temper in. "You can't even admit that your son is gay."

"Blaine is-  _struggling_. He's withdrawn and defiant and  _angry_ , and I don't see how what I do or don't believe about him means anything at all."

Burt swallowed his words, imagined Carole's calming hand on his arm and the way Liz would be silently cheering him on. "The Blaine I see is none of those things. He's polite and funny and smart, and God help all of us, he loves my son. And Kurt loves him. In less than a year they'll both be gone to college. You're going to lose him, sooner rather than later, if you don't stop treating him like something that needs fixing instead of a boy who needs your love and respect." Burt held off the rest of his words, the  _you pompous arrogant asshole_  that he knew would only make things worse. "Thanks for your time, Dr. Anderson. I won't bother you again."

He hung up before Anderson could get another word in, and dialed Kurt's cell.

"Dad?" Kurt answered on the first ring, alert like he'd been waiting for something.

"Yeah. It, um. Blaine's father's really an ass."

"I know," Kurt said, and he could hear Blaine whispering in the background. "Blaine says he's sorry you had to deal with him."

"Tell your boyfriend to stop apologizing. It's not his fault. We can talk about all of this after dinner, I just wanted to give you a heads up that despite my best intentions I may have made things worse." Christ. He felt awful about that.

"It's okay, Mr. Hummel," Blaine said over Kurt's breathing. "If my own mother can't get to him, I didn't expect you'd be able to. He's just- cold."

"Am I on speaker?" He heard both the boys laughing in the background, and didn't need more than that in answer. "Well," he said when their giggles yielded to silence, "I understand things better now. I won't do  _that_  again. And son?"

"Yes?" Kurt sounded quizzical, and Burt smiled.

"I was talking to Blaine, kiddo."

"O-oh." Blaine's voice was a little breathless, and that also made Burt smile.

"You're fine the way you are, Blaine." Burt tapped the toe of his boot against the leg of his desk. Talking like this, it still wasn't easy for him, but it was getting better. "You don't need to be anyone other than the Blaine my son loves. You understand?"

"Y-yes," Blaine whispered.

"Good. Don't forget. Both of you, home for dinner."

"Yes, Dad." Burt could hear Kurt smiling in the moment before he hung up.

Burt didn't want to think about how much trouble those two would get into before dinnertime, but since the empty house wasn't his he sure wasn't going to make too big a deal about it.

He remembered being that age, after all.

**

Carole was on her second cup of tea, and Claire had just walked through the standing stones when her cell phone danced across the coffee table. She didn't recognize the caller id.

"Carole Hudson?" The woman on the other end was tentative, nervous-sounding.

"Yes."

"This is C- um.  _Katya_  Anderson, Blaine's mother?"

"Oh, of course. Burt and I have been wanting to meet you. And I wanted to thank you. Kurt got me this book from the library, a romance he said you liked. It's quite enjoyable so far, even if I haven't reached the men in kilts yet."

Surprised laughter tinkled over the connection. "Kurt gave you Outlander? Somehow I'm not surprised. That boy..."

Carole smiled. "He's something, isn't he? Blaine is so good for him."

"Blaine is why I'm calling, actually. He and I are still, well. Things have been hard for us, the past few years, but we're getting better, he and I. And he thought, and I agreed, that a mother-son day might be fun."

"Oh. Of course." Carole was a little surprised, because she really didn't know much about Blaine's mother at all. Most of the talk in the house was about Blaine's terribly distant father.

"With the holidays coming up, I was thinking Christmas cookies. We have a vastly under-used kitchen. We could have lunch, and then you and I could talk romance novels while the boys bake." Carole could hear Katya relaxing as she talked, and that made the unease curling in her spine unknot.

"I think," she said, smiling around the idea of having a woman friend who wasn't another nurse or one of the women in her knitting circle or book club, "that a day of cookies and romances would be wonderful. I'll need to double-check my work rotation, but can I call you back at this number to make plans?"

"That would be- I was going to say perfect, but I think I really  _hate_  that word, you know? That would be great, Carole. Thank you."

Carole nodded, even though Katya couldn't see her. "Thank  _you_ ," she said, "for the invitation. And for the book recommendation."

"You're welcome," Katya said. "I'll let you back to your book, and I'll hear from you soon?"

"Of course." Carole waited until Katya ended the call before putting her phone down.

_That was unexpected_ , she thought,  _but not unwelcome_.

She left her book face-down on the coffee table next to her cooling tea and went into the kitchen to dig at her recipe box for her best Christmas cookie recipes.


	8. Chapter 8

Blaine felt like a refugee or something. Like a guest in his own home.

He'd  _known_ , of course, that nothing good would come from Burt calling his dad. He just hadn't expected the chilly silence that followed him everywhere whenever his dad was home.

It wasn't just Blaine, either. His mother, who was growing warmer and warmer with him every day, would walk on eggshells when his dad was home, the two of them hiding even more than usual.

It hurt, so Blaine started spending more and more time at Kurt's house, and as November wound closer to December, the nights often found he and Kurt at the round kitchen table working on the last of their college applications together. He had one left, the one that would probably break them, because not only wasn't in New York, it wasn't even on the East Coast.

He'd had the essay written for weeks, all that was left was filling in the rest of the information.

"Is that your last one?" Kurt peered at Blaine over the top of his laptop, and Blaine closed his own a careful inch to look back at Kurt.

"Yeah." Blaine tabbed through the required information, the things he knew by rote anymore. Name, address, birth date, social security number.

"Columbia?"

"No." Blaine swallowed. He hadn't told Kurt about this. "Columbia's done."

Kurt looked at him, puzzled. "What's left, then? You've finished NYU, Columbia, Wesleyan, Vassar, Williams, and Haverford."

"Iowa," Blaine whispered.

He waited while Kurt shook his head. "Wait. I thought you said  _Iowa_."

"I did." Blaine nodded. "So go ahead. Ask me. Because I  _know_  you have questions."

"Why?" Kurt's voice sounded plaintive, pleading. "18 years of midwest living not enough for you?"

"I think- it might be my place, Kurt. Just like you think NYADA is yours."

"So you're going to find it in Iowa?" Kurt was suddenly stand-offish in that way that Blaine hated.

Blaine drummed his fingers on the edge of the tabletop. "They have a top-ranked undergrad writing program, and a men's a cappella group. And they have a glbt residence community with a focus on activism. It could-  _god_ , Kurt, it could be  _everything._ "

He watched Kurt sink in his chair, pulling in on himself. Getting smaller. He wanted to reach out, to plead  _come back to me_. But he waited, because he knew the ways in which Kurt processed his hurt.

"Everything. More than me?" Kurt wrapped his arms around himself. "I thought we were going to do this together. I know New York isn't everything for you, and I figured East Coast schools would be fine, because of the bus and the train and all. But  _Iowa_ , Blaine?"

"Kurt." Blaine slid out of his chair and onto the floor next to where Kurt was, rested his head on Kurt's knee and took one of Kurt's hands in his own. "I freaking  _love_  you, okay? I love you more than I love myself, most of the time. But this isn't about you. And really, at this point, it isn't even about  _me_ , because all I'm doing is sending in an application."

Kurt huffed into the air, and Blaine pulled out the last card in his hand. "And really? You're going to give me crap about  _Iowa_  when you wouldn't even be leaving Ohio if you ended up at Baldwin-Wallace?"

He felt Kurt's leg stiffen under his cheek. "Nobody was supposed to know about that," Kurt whispered. "It's supposed to be a secret. And it's  **not**  settling, because B-W has one of the top musical theater programs in the country, and I'm pissed as hell that Ms. Pillsbury didn't say anything about it."

"Why secret?" Blaine wasn't really getting it.

"Because everyone else would see me going there as a sign that I'm not good enough to make it in New York, when it would really be about  _getting_  good enough to make it in New York." Kurt shifted, suddenly boneless, and then he was there on the floor next to Blaine, the flower print on the plastic-covered tablecloth right at eye level.

"I think that's what everyone would think about Iowa, too." Blaine rubbed circles over the back of Kurt's hand.

"I  _hate_  worrying about what everyone else thinks," Kurt said bitterly. "I've spent my whole life hearing it, I just hoped that we'd at least be able to apply to college without it being a _thing_ , you know?"

"I do," Blaine said, suddenly distracted by the clatter of the front door and the unmistakable sound of Finn and Rachel making their way up the stairs.

"You're sure your dads don't mind? I mean, it's a lot to ask."

"I think Daddy was excited. I mean, they love me and everything, but sometimes I think they wish I'd been a boy," Rachel replied. Blaine wasn't following, but he caught the way Kurt was biting the inside of his lip like he was trying to keep a secret.

"What's that about?" Blaine waved his hand towards the living room.

"Sam Evans," Kurt said, with a twinkle in his eyes. "They found him in Nashville, working in a  _strip club_ , but you didn't hear that from me. And he's staying at Rachel's house." Kurt shrugged. "He's a good guy, okay voice. And having him back means we get to drop one of the jazz band kids, which ups our chances at Sectionals, so."

"As long as he can sing, I don't see why it matters  _where_  he was working," Blaine said.

"Well, Rachel and Finn seem to think it's absolutely scandalous, but whatever. I for one am glad to have Sam back. He added something to the group." Kurt glanced around at the floor and picked a speck of dust off his jeans. "Can we get up, please, now that we're not going to fall apart over college choices?"

Blaine laughed, but it was half-hearted. He knew they hadn't even come close to finishing this conversation, especially if B-W and Iowa ended up seriously on the table.

But all of that could wait until the warmth of spring.

**

Blaine's morning had started out perfectly, coffee and breakfast at The Lima Bean with Kurt. He'd sent his Iowa application in the night before, and he was rocking on his History paper that was due on Monday, and he was having a  _good_  self-image day on the same day that his hair was cooperating.

The wheels loosened with Sebastian and his slightly over-the-edge intensity. On one hand, Blaine found it kind of hot, but mostly it made him queasy because Sebastian treating him like an  _object_  made Blaine think of every one of his father's misguided stereotypes. Blaine hadn't been able to stomach sitting at the table, so he'd excused himself and just kind of stood, shaking, in the alcove near the restrooms until he could manage a deep breath.

The unmasked hatred in Kurt's eyes when he'd gone back to the table was enough to set the fire of his rage smoldering in his belly, and by the time he'd survived two slushies, a physical fitness pre-test in PE, and a pop quiz in physics, it was time for Glee.

Where Sam was going on and on and  _on_  about sex, and all Blaine could think about was Sebastian.

He felt the smolder catch and burst, but he couldn't control it. He was on Sam in an instant,  _I'm not for sale_  bitter and accusatory on his lips, unwillingly outing Sam even though Sam wasn't the problem at all.  _He_ was the problem because he couldn't deal with his fucking life, and he had to just get  _out of there_  before he did something even more stupid than he already had.

He'd started boxing for a million reasons that had everything and nothing to do with the beating. Protection, sure, but it was more than that. It was something his father approved of, something that gave Blaine a way to be  _in his skin_  that existed outside of performing.

It was the same every time: tape his jittery hands, jam them into thick gloves, and begin the dance, the give and take with the bag that was just like fronting the Warblers. Five minutes in,  _every time_ , Blaine's head would be clear and the energy that had been making him crazy would be just a light fizzle in his knuckles.

But not this time. He'd been going full-bore at the bag for fifteen minutes before Finn slipped through the door, and he was just as full of anger as he'd been when he'd started.

He was just happy that it hadn't been Kurt chasing after him; Kurt didn't understand the boxing, didn't understand Blaine's almost compulsive need to move all the time. Blaine wondered what it meant that the only time he was ever truly still was when he was with Kurt.

Blaine knew that he sometimes went unreachable when he was upset. He worked hard every day not to go there with Kurt, but he knew he was halfway there when Finn reached out and pulled him back. When he  _let_  Finn reach out and pull him back.

"You're the most talented, well-rounded member of this team," Blaine could hear Finn tell him, through the adrenaline haze. It wasn't something Blaine thought about himself, mostly because performing was something he did largely to keep himself from falling apart.

Still. The idea that Finn  _needed_  him for something was kind of a rush, because Blaine had always been the kid that  _nobody_  wanted or needed for anything. "Tell me what you need me to do," he said before his brain had a chance to  _think_  instead of react.

Finn seemed to know exactly the right things to say to entice someone who'd only ever wanted to  _matter_ ; he invoked the idea of legends, extraordinary feats. Heroics.

_Damn him_ , Blaine thought as he trailed Finn out of the gym and into the auditorium.

**

"What was that today?" Kurt spooned around Blaine, holding him tight the way he liked when he was too thinky, the two of them warm and a little flushed, and safe in the half-darkness of Kurt's room.

"Nothing," Blaine replied, and Kurt just held him tighter.

"Don't give me that, baby. I was  _there_ , okay? It was like . . . I didn't even recognize you." Kurt knew it was lame, but it was the best he could come up with because he'd been so _shocked_  by Blaine lashing out that way.

Well. Maybe not shocked at the act, but at the publicness of it.

One of the things that Kurt loved about being with Blaine was that they both had the space together to have their breakdowns in private, in a time and place where they could pick each other back up, wrapped in the solace of each other. He'd known, of course, that Blaine would break someday. He just felt a little lost that  _Finn_  had been the one to bring Blaine back to him.

"It's not- it wasn't-  _God_." Blaine turned in Kurt's arm and tipped his forehead against Kurt's shoulder. "It wasn't about dancing, or Sam. Or even  _sex_ , really."

"Okay," Kurt soothed, wanting to shake Blaine and demand to know what it really  _was_  about, because he couldn't erase the shock of  _it's cheap_  and the way he hadn't even realized that he'd flinched until later.

"Sebastian's what started it, because he makes me  _mad_  and _confused_ , and he has no right to make  _you_  feel those things either. I can't- I need to-"

"Take your time," Kurt whispered, rubbing a circle on Blaine's back, his skin warm and soft under Kurt's hand.

"I hate that I can't protect you from him," Blaine finally forced out, and Kurt found himself flinching for the second time that day.

"I can take care of myself," he nearly spat. "Why does everyone think I'm weak and fragile?"

"I didn't-  _crap_." Blaine rolled over and reached for his t-shirt where it was piled on Kurt's floor with the rest of his clothes. "I don't think any of those things about you. Sebastian isn't about  _you_. It's  _me_  he wants, and I can't stand the way he makes my skin crawl, and I don't like it when you look at me like you're disappointed because I can't seem to make him go away."

"I'm not-" Kurt reached out to tug Blaine back into bed. "I'm not disappointed in you, Blaine. Sebastian is a creep, I'll give you that. But I won't  _let_  him get you, because if there's one thing I know how to do, it's to fight for what I want. And I want you, so please. Just get back into bed with me and let's pretend like this day didn't happen."

"I wish," Blaine muttered, pulling the blankets back up over them. He curled himself back into Kurt, and Kurt buried his nose in Blaine's hair.

"I love you," he said, because it never seemed to matter how many times he told Blaine, he never felt like he could say it enough or put enough force behind it to convince Blaine that he wasn't going anywhere.

"Even when I don't love myself?" Blaine's voice was soft, sad.

"Especially when you don't love you yourself." Kurt was almost overwhelmed with tenderness. "That's when I get to love you enough for both of us."


	9. Chapter 9

Carole wasn’t sure why she was nervous, exactly, except that the last time she’d had to play meet and greet with the parents of her son’s love interest, it had been Judy and Russel Fabray, and that had been an utter disaster even before the baby scandal.  
  
“It’s fine, Carole,” Kurt soothed, taking the recipe box from her hands.  “It’s just tea and cookies.”  
  
“She’s your _boyfriend’s mother_ ,” Carole hissed under her breath.  “Tea and cookies could turn into the Inquisition.”  
  
“She’s probably just as nervous as you are.  Just- _breathe_ , okay?  And you can always fall back on those romances.  That Jamie is pretty hot.”    
  
Carole startled, and caught the faint blush on Kurt’s cheeks.  “I wondered where that first book got off to,” she teased, nudging his shoulder as she reached out to ring the doorbell.  “You could always tell people you really wanted to read about the sword fights and all.”  
  
Kurt shook his head.  “You saw my prom outfit last year.  It’s always going to be about the men in kilts.”  
  
The door swung open before Carole could reply, and Blaine was there, ever-gracious and a little nervous-looking himself as he reached out for the recipe box that Kurt was cradling like a baby.  
  
“Let me-” he said, and Kurt barely moved to press the box into Blaine’s hands, their fingertips brushing and the two of them moving like magnets, drawing in and retreating again and again until they finally found each other, shoulder to shoulder in the entryway.    
  
Carole had watched that same give and take play out time after time at the dinner table and in the living room, on the front porch and through Kurt’s open bedroom door, but it never failed to surprise her, the way that they always came back to each other.  
  
“They’re something, aren’t they?”  A cautious voice reached out to Carole from the bottom of the stairs, and she turned into the dark curls and gray eyes of the woman who _had_ to be Katya.    
  
“Yes,” Carole breathed.  “It still amazes me.”  
  
“They’re good for each other.”  Katya sounded reserved, but her face was open, and Carole felt instantly comfortable.  
  
“They are,” Carole nodded.  “They settle each other.”  
  
“I think that’s what really made me pay attention,” Katya said, reaching for Carole’s coat and purse.  “I don’t think Blaine’s ever been settled.  He’s been restless since the day he was born, but Kurt-”  
  
“Mm,” Carole nodded.  “He has that effect on people.  I think it’s because he’s so stubborn.”  She laughed lightly, because she could already hear Kurt in the kitchen, telling Blaine all the reasons why parchment paper was better than wax paper for baking cookies.    
  
“Do you even want to bother baking, or should we just sit back and watch the boys make a mess?”  Katya tilted her head to where the boys were plucking recipe cards out of the box.  
  
“Oooh,” Blaine said with enthusiasm.  “I _love_ these.  I could eat, like, a whole batch all by myself.”  
  
Kurt tapped him gently on the nose with the card.  “We can make them, but _you_ have to roll them in the powdered sugar.  I _hate_ that part.”  
  
“Russian Tea Cakes?”  Katya called out, and Blaine nodded.  “He really could eat a whole batch on his own,” she smiled at Kurt.  “One year, I made him those instead of cake for his birthday.”  
  
“Finn always liked gingerbread men.  He liked to eat their heads off first,” Carole said, and held her breath when Kurt went silent at the counter, running his thumb over the tattered edge of one of the cards.  
  
“My mom always made these.  They were my favorites.”  He closed his eyes, and Carole wanted to look away when Blaine slid behind him, wrapping Kurt in his arms and whispering something into his ear, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the way they were together, just knowing.  
  
“Date Pinwheels,” Blaine said, taking the card from Kurt and setting it on the counter.  “We can totally make these.  I bet they’re delicious.”  
  
Katya directed Carole over to the table.  “I’ll make some tea,” she said, “and we can relax while the boys work.”

 

**

 

“Did you have fun today?”  Blaine looked up from his book at his mother’s voice.  
  
“Yeah,” he said.  “Kurt too.  And he said that Carole likes you.”  
  
“I like Carole, too,” his mom replied, handing him a glass of milk and a small plate.  “I thought you might like a snack.  Assuming that you didn’t make yourself sick on them earlier.”  
  
“Never,” Blaine said, shaking his head and setting the plate of cookies on his nightstand.  “Thanks, Mom.  For today, and for everything.”  
  
“You don’t need to thank me, baby.  I like being a part of your life.  Thank _you_ for sharing it with me.”  She lingered in the doorway for a moment like she wanted to say something else, but then she just brushed her hair from her eyes.  “I’m off to bed.  Don’t stay up too late.”  
  
“I won’t,” he said, but he knew that he probably would.  He’d eaten a _lot_ of cookies, and he _finally_ had an idea for Kurt’s Christmas present.    
  
He waited until he heard his mom’s door close before closing his own.  He turned on his iPod, and rummaged in his desk for the baggie there, the one Kurt always teased him about.  
  
 _Gum wrappers, Blaine?_ he would say every time Blaine smoothed out the paper from another piece of Big Red or Juicy Fruit or Doublemint, but it had started long before Kurt, back when all of the girls in Blaine’s world made elaborate origami bracelets and necklaces from gum wrappers.  Blaine had been jealous, both of their ability to _wear_ such creations, but also of their ability to fold and connect in such a way that you really had to look hard to even _see_ that paper had once held sticks of gum.  
  
He’d started collecting when he was in middle school, and he’d always known that someday he would make _something._ Now was the day, and he finally knew _what_ , too.  
  
He didn’t need a lot.  Maybe four wrappers, but he was going to need a lot to practice with, so he set aside the most pristine, two Big Reds, a Fruit Stripe, and a random square one from the odd piece of watermelon Bubblicious he’d taken from Brittany after Glee one afternoon, and went to work with the others.  
  
He had to get it just right.  
  
**  
  
The box burned a hole in his pocket all damn day, and he knew he must have been acting weird, because Kurt kept shooting him loaded glances that he didn’t know what to do with.  He’d wanted to wait, to give Kurt his present later, when they could be alone.  But Blaine knew that if he didn’t do it before they walked out of school, he’d probably lose his nerve.  
  
So he lingered at his locker after the last bell, mindlessly shifting books from his bag to his locker and back again because he couldn’t focus on what he actually needed to work on over break.  
  
“Everything okay?”  Kurt leaned against the locker next to Blaine’s just watching, eyes sharp, as Blaine turned his Physics book over in his hands.  
  
“Yeah,” he sighed, tossing the book on the pile with Econ and Spanish and English, but carefully pulling Calculus and History back out and sliding them into his bag.    
  
“Because you’ve seemed a little on edge today.  Are you nervous about meeting my Great Aunt Mildred?  Because really, she’s harmless.”  Kurt cocked his head at Blaine, and rested a hand on his shoulder.  “It’s vacation.   _Relax_.”  
  
“I’m, um.”  Blaine glanced nervously around the hall, to make sure it was pretty well empty, before taking Kurt’s hand and pulling him toward the old Astronomy classroom.  “I need to, um.  Talk to you.”  
  
Kurt stopped dead in the middle of the hall.  “ _What?_ ” He practically screeched, and Blaine winced.  “You’re going to break up with me right before Christmas?”  
  
“Wait.  No. _No!_ ”  Blaine started scrambling then, clinging to Kurt’s hand and patting his pockets with his free hand, awkwardly reaching across his body to pull the box out his left pocket rather than let go of Kurt.  “I just-” he lowered his voice “-kind of wanted to do this someplace a little less public than the school hallway.  Like the Lima Bean, at our usual table,” he teased finally, trying really hard not to stare at the way Kurt’s eyes had gone ocean-like in his ghostly pale face.    
  
He watched Kurt’s hands ( _god, **always** his hands) _ flutter, one finger settling on his lips to steel himself.  
  
“It’s not what you think.  I mean, it kind of is.  But-”  he held his breath as Kurt tipped the lid up on the velvet box and breathed a knowing sigh.  
  
“It’s not what you deserve.  It’s not even what I really _want_ to give you, someday.  But it’s what I _can_ give you now.”  And then he just had to wait, for Kurt to touch each curve and fold of paper.  To push the box back at Blaine with trembling hands and strip off one of his insanely soft fingerless gloves.  
  
“I want-” Blaine began, sliding the ring out of the box with his own shaky hands, “to promise that no matter what happens next year I’ll still be yours.”  
  
“We’re seventeen, Blaine,” Kurt said, even as he offered his hand to Blaine.    
  
“I know,” Blaine replied, taking a deep breath and pushing forward, twisting the bended paper over the contours of Kurt’s finger.  “I love you, Kurt.  I love you every day, with all of my heart.  And I wanted to _show_ you, instead of just telling you.”  
  
“It’s perfect,” Kurt said, wrapping his arms around Blaine the same way he had that night on the stage after West Side Story.  Blaine could hear the echo of _you take my breath away_ , and he wished again that they were anywhere but at school.  
  
“I’m glad you like it,” Blaine whispered into Kurt’s neck, and he kissed there, lightly, just above the edge of Kurt’s shirt collar.  He felt Kurt go halfway boneless against him.  
  
“First you give me an engagement ring and then _that_ ,” Kurt teased, voice low and already wanting.  
  
“It’s a _promise_ ring,” Blaine replied, kissing him again.  
  
“Close enough,” Kurt sighed, tugging on Blaine’s hand.  “Now.  C’mon, my potential future husband.  My house is empty until 5 pm.  I have a present for you, too, but _I’m_ not going to give it to you in the hall at school.”  
  
**  
Kurt flipped the blinds so that nobody could see in, but he left them open enough that the light fell in ropes over the bed.  He secretly liked the way it was on these afternoons, the way the light would play over Blaine’s skin, turning it gold.  Kurt would sometimes trace his finger over the shadows, feeling the goosebumps that would rise in response.  If he was feeling really brave, he’d sometimes follow his finger with his lips, but physicality was still sometimes awkward for him, and he had a hard time just letting go and being in the moment.  
  
There were so many things he wanted to give to Blaine, to show him and tell him, but most days it was like all of his thoughts and feelings and wants just got knotted up inside of him, and he couldn’t do anything but the same things he _always_ did, _always_ said.    
  
But today.  Today he could do _anything._ Blaine had given him that, gave him that every day, and had given it to him again in that ring box.  
  
“I love you,” he said, turning from the window and holding out his hand.  Blaine came to him, easily and so open in that way Kurt loved to see when it was just the two of them, like everything else just disappeared and they could just be _KurtandBlaine_ , together, their best and most simple selves.  
  
“And I love you,” Blaine whispered, burying his face in Kurt’s neck.    
  
Kurt pulled away for a moment, long enough to snag the silver-wrapped package off his desk and press it into Blaine’s hands.  “You should-” he swallowed.  “Open this.  First.”  
  
He almost didn’t want Blaine to open the package, because he just wanted to lose himself in Blaine’s body, let himself fall under Blaine’s touch.  But he _needed_ Blaine to know, to understand, that they were together in this, that they wanted the same future.  The same life.  
  
He waited for Blaine to pop the tape on the edges, and held his breath as Blaine slid the box out of the wrapping and worked the top off.  Blaine’s eyes were wide and his hands trembling when he pulled the silver bracelet out.  The knotted strands of metal wrapped around in a raised design, and when Kurt had found it, he’d instantly thought about how the texture would feel, under his fingers, warmed by Blaine’s skin.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” Blaine sighed, holding his wrist out for Kurt to fasten it.  
  
“I wanted it to be a ring,” Kurt whispered, suddenly reverent.  “But it felt like too much, just yet.”  
  
“Gum wrappers,” Blaine nodded sagely, touching the twisted paper on Kurt’s finger.  It felt weighted, that touch, with all the things they both wanted to say.  
  
“I’m yours,” Kurt sighed, leaning into Blaine, letting Blaine catch him.  
  
“Mine,” Blaine hummed.  “And I’m yours.”  
  
“Mine,” Kurt replied, slipping his hands around Blaine’s back and under the hem of his shirt.  “Always.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

"Is that a ring?" Burt eyed Kurt's right hand warily, because he was seeing  _rin g_ but he was also seeing something that looked like it was made out of paper, and the pieces weren't coming together in his head.

"Um. Yes." Kurt spooned mashed potatoes onto his plate, and Burt watched him twist the . . .  _whatever_. . . carefully around his finger. "Blaine made it for me."

"Dude, like an  _engagement_ ring?" Finn nudged Kurt gently with his shoulder, and Burt couldn't help smiling lightly at Finn's gentle teasing and Kurt's blush.

"It's _paper_ , Finn, so no.  _Not_ like an engagement ring." Kurt was indignant, but smiling.

"Except, kid, that's  _exactly_ what it is." Burt couldn't believe he was actually talking about this, about engagements and his seventeen year old son and his seventeen year old boyfriend, neither of them even old enough to vote yet.

"No," Kurt shook his head over his plate. "It's not. That's- um.  _Too much_ ," he finally whispered. "We're too young," he said, looking around the table taking in Finn, and then Carole, and then locking eyes with Burt.

_Don't_ , his gaze said.  _Not here, not now_. And Burt knew his kid, and knew Blaine well enough by now, to understand. There was so much Kurt wasn't saying, didn't want to be public knowledge. But Burt knew that it would all come out in time, when Kurt was ready and able to explain it all. That's just the way it was, so different from Finn and everything he thought and felt right there, pouring out of him for everyone to see. Burt liked the ease of that, sometimes, but he understood Kurt better because that was his way, too.

So he waited until the dinner dishes had been put away and Carole and Finn had retreated to their rooms in the quiet of a weekend night before taking Kurt an early mug of warm milk.

"It's not-" Kurt started before Burt was even in the door, shifting on his bed to make space for Burt to sit.

Burt held up his hand and shook his head. "You don't have to pretend with me, Kurt. I'm not going to be upset, I just don't want you to feel like you and Blaine have to hide from me. Because I can  _see_ how much you love each other, how steady you are together. So," he said, settling next to Kurt and watching him turn Blaine's paper ring around on his finger, "what's the story?"

"It's a promise ring," Kurt said softly. "Just, something to remind us how we feel. Because, you know, next year is kind of going to suck, because we probably won't be in the same place."

"I thought the plan was New York." Burt hadn't been as involved in Kurt's college process as he probably should have been, what with the election and everything else going on. But Kurt had been  _breathing_ New York since last spring.

"Plans change," Kurt shrugged. "Did you know that Baldwin-Wallace has one of the top-ranked musical theater programs in the country? I mean, as good as NYADA, if not better? Or that Blaine wants to study writing? It's just-" Burt waited while Kurt sighed and and fiddled with his hair. "Unless I get into NYADA, even his New York choices would put us in separate states. So. A promise ring."

Burt stared at Kurt, wanting to ask but not sure if he really wanted to know. "What did  _you_ give Blaine for Christmas?"

He waited out Kurt's blush and lowered eyes. "A bracelet," Kurt finally said, "because I was too nervous to get him a ring."

_Oh_. "Wow, Kurt." Burt rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "I knew things were serious. I knew before you even got together that when you did it was going to be serious. I'm not sure I'm ready for rings, though."

Kurt huffed out a burst of laughter and held up his hand, waggling the finger where Blaine's paper ring sat. "Neither are we, Dad. Not  _really_. Someday, thought," he admitted, sliding his eyes down to stare at his quilt.

"Yeah? You think you guys'll get married someday?" Burt tried to stay calm. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about Kurt getting married. Hell, he'd even had flashes of thoughts about Kurt and  _Blaine_  getting married, but he just couldn't wrap his brain around Kurt being  _so sure_  when he was  _so young_.

"I kind of have to," Kurt said, determination thick in his voice. "Sometimes it seems like believing it is the only way I'm going to get through till then."

And Burt understood, he  _did_. He can see the way the boys are, like lifelines, like the poem Kurt read him from his Literature class at Dalton last year,  _we two boys together clinging_. They hold each other up, every day.

Burt didn't want to think about promise rings, or bracelets for rings, or  _getting married_ , but he also didn't want to think about how wrecked the boys would be, apart in the fall, without the tentative lifeline of a seventeen year old's promise.

"It's their time to figure it out," Carole told him later, spooned into the warmth of his chest. "I wasn't much older when I met Christopher and got pregnant with Finn."

"Yeah," Burt said into the darkness. "I just wish that they didn't have to grow up so fast."

"They've both been grown a long time, and we all know it," Carole replied. "That doesn't make any of this easier, it just means that they're ready to try and fly on their own, and we just need to be here to pick them up when they fall."

"I don't like it," Burt mumbled, and he could feel Carole's patient, teasing smile even though he couldn't see it.

"It's called parenting, honey. It's our job. You've done a great job, protecting Kurt. Loving him, keeping him safe. You raised a wonderful son, Burt. Now, you get to share him with Blaine. You  _like_ Blaine."

"I do," he nodded.

"Good." Carole patted his arm. "Then think of it this way: with he and Blaine engaged-"

" _Promised_ ," Burt corrected.

"Okay,  _promised_ ," Carole sighed, "that just means that there's one more person out there in the world looking after Kurt."

"You're right," Burt said. "Why are you always right?"

"Because I have some distance here. The same way you're always right when I need Finn advice. The perks of a blended family, I guess."

* * *

Blaine rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows and tested the water to make sure it was hot enough before putting the stopper in the sink and adding the dish soap. There were a  _lot_ of dishes. With any luck he'd be able to hide out for at least half an hour before anyone noticed he was missing.

"You don't have to do that, Blaine," his mom said, her heels clacking on the kitchen floor as the door swung closed to insulate them both from the din of the friends and relatives in the front of the house.

"I want to," Blaine said, grabbing the sponge and sliding the the stack of plates carefully into the sink.

"Too many people?" He watched his mother unfasten her watch and slide her rings off, set them in a neat pile on the far end of the countertop, and reach into a drawer for a stack of dish towels.

Blaine shook his head. "Too many questions.  _Where are you applying to school? What are you going to major in? Do you have a girlfriend?_ "

"I'm sorry, honey." His mother's hand was cool on his wrist, her finger sliding along the raised pattern of Kurt's bracelet. "This is lovely. From Kurt, yes?"

"Yeah," Blaine sighed.

"Here, let me." She turned his wrist over to get to the clasp. "You shouldn't wear it to do dishes," she said as she added it to the pile with her own jewelry. "What did you give him, if I'm not prying?"

Blaine slid the sponge carefully over the gold-rimmed plate in his hand. The hot water felt good, soothing, as did the gentle motions of cleaning. "I made him um. A ring. Out of gum wrappers."

His mother's sure hand captured the plate and rinsed it in the other side of the sink, and then she set it face down on the first of the towels now spanning the length of the counter. "That was brave of you."

"It's not really-  _anything_ , actually. I mean, I guess it is. A promise. But that's all. It's not like we're engaged or anything." Blaine couldn't look at his mother, because this was scary and adult and somehow felt like it should only be between he and Kurt, and there was  _no way_ that was ever going to happen.

"But you've talked about it."

"Yeah. We've talked about it a little bit." Blaine kept his eyes on the sink, brain struggling to focus on  _plate-scrub-don't you_ _ **dare**_ _drop anything_.

"It's okay, to want that. To want committment. I know you guys are young, still, and it's scary, but sometimes you just know."

Blaine sighed in relief. "You think? I mean, that we  _could_ be sure now?"

His mother nodded, and Blaine watched the way her hands moved, tilting the plate under the faucet. He had a sudden flash of Kurt's hands, simple silver band reflecting light and water, making the same motion. He felt the briefest sensation of being  _sometime else_ , an apartment or house in the future, and could almost  _feel_ the weight of a matching band on his own hand.

Oh, god.

It felt good and right and solid.

His heart was thudding in his chest.

"Are you okay, baby?" His mother rested her hand on his, gentle and calming, and Blaine took a deep breath.

"I need to call Kurt. Is it okay if he comes over?" Blaine was already fumbling in his pocket with wet hands, desperately seeking his phone and the lifeline it offered to Kurt.  _To my heart,_ he thought.

His mother nodded. "As long as you're not interrupting his Christmas Eve with his family'" she said. "Let's leave the dishes. We can do them later."

But Blaine was already dialing Kurt's number, holding his phone to his ear with shaking hands."

"I need you," Blaine started as soon as he heard Kurt's voice, cautious, in his ear. "I know it's Christmas Eve, and you're probably busy, but  _god,_  Kurt, I  _need_  you. Can you- would you- there's this  _party-_ "

"Breathe, Blaine." Kurt's voice reached out to him, tender and patient. "We've already had dinner, and Finn is on his way out with Rachel, so I can be there in 15 minutes if you're sure."

"I'm sure," Blaine said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Just- be prepared, okay? Because there's lots of family here, and some of my dad's co-workers, and there have already been lots of questions."

"Your father-"

"My father can go to hell, for all I care. I just need you."

"Okay, baby. I'm on my way." Blaine listened to whispers, and the sound of Kurt shrugging into his coat, the slam of the front door at Kurt's house. "I need to hand up to drive. I'll see you in 15 minutes."

Blaine hung up his phone, tucked it back into his pocket, and tried to calm down. There was so much he needed to tell Kurt, so much he needed to make his father understand, and it was like all of the words and emotions were suddenly trying to force their way out of him.

He grabbed his bracelet-  _Kurt's bracelet_ \- from the counter and pushed out into the din of the party, picking his way through everybody until he reached his mother, deep in conversation with his Aunt Lisa.

"Mom," he said, nodding to his aunt. "Will you?" He slipped the bracelet into her hand and held out his wrist, and waited while she fastened the clasp.

"That's lovely, Blaine," his aunt said. "From your girlfriend?"

Blaine glanced at his mother, held her gaze for a second and relaxed at her minute nod.

"No, Aunt Lisa. From my boyfriend. He's actually on his way, so you'll get to meet him shortly. His name is Kurt." Blaine was shaking all over, but he kept his voice calm.

"Your father never said- I didn't know. I'm sorry, Blaine, for assuming you had a girlfriend." Aunt Lisa looked a little stunned, but she held Blaine in a tight hug. "You're very brave," she whispered into his ear, "and I'm proud of you."

"T-thank you," Blaine said, hugging her back.

"I want to meet your Kurt," she said, stepping away and smoothing halfheartedly at her hair.

"Of course," Blaine smiled, feeling relief that at least he and his mother and Kurt had  _one_ ally in the room.

He wandered aimlessly through the front of the house, catching snippets of conversations, until his restlessness drove him onto the front porch without his jacket because he couldn't stand being in there, with all those people, without Kurt. It felt like he couldn't breathe, but he knew it would be better with Kurt.

It was always better with Kurt, from the first day they had met.

He looked up from his pacing at the slam of a car door, and he strode down the steps to the lawn, to meet Kurt halfway, pulling him tight into his arms and breathing in his shampoo and aftershave.

"What's wrong?" Kurt's voice and eyes were frantic, and Blaine knew he needed to calm Kurt down even though all he really wanted to do was just  _breathe_ for a minute.

"Nothing," Blaine said, hushed. "Nothing is wrong. I'm just-  _god_ , Kurt. I love you. I love you so much, and you make me so happy. And I know we said lots of things, with the not-ring, and the not-a-ring bracelet. But I was washing dishes with my mother tonight, and I  _saw_ us."

"What?" Kurt peered at him, confusion on his face.

"I had a vision, or something, of us. In the future. Washing dishes together, and there were  _rings_ , and I just knew." He took Kurt's hand and pulled him close. He rested his forehead against Kurt's and sighed with the rightness of all of it. "We said lots of things, and I know we're young and crazy. But I want to marry you, Kurt. Not yet, but someday. Will you marry me, Kurt?"

Blaine didn't need to look to know tears were frozen in Kurt's eyelashes like snowflakes, didn't need to blink to feel his own tears, desperate on his cheeks. He didn't need to breathe to feel his heart, full to bursting with love and happiness.

He didn't need to listen to hear Kurt's silent  _yes_ as he pressed his lips to Blaine's.

* * *

Kurt held tight to Blaine's hand as Blaine led him through throngs of people at the party, letting Blaine's energy fill him up because  _that_  kind of party has always sucked the life out of him, but he cant just  _leave_.

"Blaine." Mr. Anderson's cool voice pulled Blaine up short, and Kurt skittered to a stop half an inch from Blaine's back.

"Dad." Blaine turned, squeezing Kurt's hand harder, and Kurt squeezed back, telling him silently  _I'm here_.

"You didn't tell me  _he_  was coming." Kurt felt his blood turn cold. He  _hated_ Mr. Anderson, mostly because of how he treated Blaine, but also partly because of how he treated Kurt himself, like he was invisible or worse.

"I wanted Kurt here. We're going to go hang out with the cousins." Kurt could hear the challenge in Blaine's voice, the silent  _don't push this because I'm waiting to push back._ He'd felt it coursing through Blaine, even after they'd finished sharing tear-salty kisses in the cold.

Kurt held his breath, felt Mr. Anderson's eyes traveling over them both, down to their clasped hands and the bracelet, heavy and dark on Blaine's wrist, to where the ring sat, feather-light and colorful on Kurt's finger.

"What is  _that_?" Mr. Anderson's words rang out like an accusation, and Kurt drew himself up, ready to go to war. But Blaine's hand was on his bicep then, and his voice was level and eerily calm.

"It's a ring," Blaine said, his eyes on fire, challenging. "It's not what Kurt deserves, but it's what I could give him."

"It's not-" Mr. Anderson shook his head and blinked rapidly. "It can't-" He paused, leaned closer to Blaine and lowered his voice. "Blaine. Tell me that isn't what I think it is."

"Yes, Dad." Kurt could feel Blaine vibrating with the adrenaline, could almost taste it in the back of his own throat, because he knew there was going to be no going back from this confrontation. It was going to be forward or nothing. "I asked Kurt to marry me, and he said yes."

"I won't- no. You can't. We've had this discussion, Blaine." Mr. Anderson was almost hissing, he was so angry.

"There's nothing to discuss, Dad. You've never accepted me, and I never expected you to accept Kurt. But I'd hoped that you'd at least be able to be happy that I'm happy." Kurt moved closer, letting the edge of his shoulder press against Blaine's, and he felt Blaine press back against him.

_Hold him up_ , his father's voice echoed in his head.  _Hold your man up, give him the strength he needs_.

"How can I be happy for  _this_?" Mr. Anderson's face twisted, and he scowled at Kurt, like he'd turned Blaine gay or something.

"Because I'm your son," Blaine replied. "Because that should be all that matters, but it's never been enough for you and I'm done now."

"Done with what?" Mr. Anderson looked confused, but Kurt understood and he gasped with the clarity of what was happening.

"Done with you. You don't love me, you've never approved of me. And I can't spend any more time trying to  _make_ you. If you don't want to deal with me, then don't. I'm not your son anymore."

Mr. Anderson's face was red with anger. "Get out, then. If you don't want to be my son then you also don't want this family."

"Fine," Blaine choked out, and Kurt knew he was trying not to cry.

"Kent." Kurt startled, and Mrs. Anderson was there, cool and calm next to him.

"Catherine." Mr. Anderson cocked his head at his wife, an expression Kurt recognized but without the tenderness he always saw in Blaine's face.

"I think," Mrs. Anderson said, her voice brittle and tired, "that perhaps it's  _you_  who doesn't want to be a part of this family. Because Blaine is my son and Kurt is the boy who makes him happy, and that is what family does. If you can't see that, then maybe  _you're_ the one who needs to leave. Because if Blaine goes, so do I."

"But it's Christmas Eve," Mr. Anderson was spluttering, and waving his arm at the lights and the food and the guests at the party.

"It doesn't matter," Mrs. Anderson said. "It's time for you to make your choice."

Mr. Anderson just stood there in silence, so Kurt sprung into action. He pulled Blaine and Mrs. Anderson into the kitchen, and dialed his house, telling Carole to make the guest room bed because they were having guests. "I'll explain when we get home," he said at first her and then his dad's repeated questions about  _what the hell is going on, Kurt?_ But when the details had been sorted and Blaine was looking a little less shaky and Mrs. Anderson a little less shell-shocked, Kurt just held both of their hands.

"You're coming home with me tonight," he said, and then Blaine's mother was hugging them both. When she whispered  _you are good and strong and so so brave_  Kurt wasn't sure who she was talking to. But it didn't matter in the end, because Kurt knew that they were both her sons now.


	11. Chapter 11

"You can both stay as long as you need to," Kurt's dad said, but Blaine didn't need to hear his mother's reply to know what was going to happen next. His mother's rich laugh was shaky as it followed them up the stairs to Kurt's room.

"Oh, no," she told him and Carole. "I'll be there first thing in the morning. I'll be fighting him tooth and nail. Blaine and I will be fine."

"You will, you know," Kurt sighed as he pulled Blaine into his room and clicked the door closed behind them. "You'll be just fine, because you're so strong. You dealt with him for all this time, and you fought him so hard. I'm so proud of you, for the way you were tonight."

Blaine shook his head against Kurt's chest. "I'm broken, Kurt. You  _know_ that. I'm just really good at hiding it now."

Kurt's arms were tight around him, holding him up. Holding him together, just like always.

Blaine wasn't sure he wanted to know what Kurt's silence meant, so he just let himself be led over to Kurt's bed, let himself be held, tight and safe and curled into Kurt's body.

"You and your mom are going to be fine. You and  _I_  are going to be fine. Just let me love you." Kurt's voice was warm in Blaine's ear, and it was  _so easy_ that Blaine didn't even think, he just breathed into the gentleness of Kurt's hands and let himself be taken until he was shuddering and crying and Kurt was right there, still holding him together.

* * *

January was messy, the house alternately silent or raging as Blaine's parents tried to figure their shit out without impacting him. He could tell that most of the raging happened during the days when he was at school, because there would be one less glass in the cupboard or a picture frame suddenly without glass on the piano. Nights were silent, his father sleeping downstairs in his office while Blaine and his mother had free reign of the second floor.

On February 1st, there was music in the house. His mother in the kitchen, sipping wine from the bottle as she cooked, sauteeing chicken and garlic and musrooms. "Chicken Marsala," she nodded at him as he came in from an afternoon at Kurt's house, pouring some wine in to deglaze the pan.

"Dad gave in?" Because even through the silence Blaine  _knew_ that all the raging had been over the house.

His mother nodded. "He gave in."

Blaine hadn't expected the relief that flooded his body, and he had to grab the edge of the counter to steady himself.

"I never thought . . ." He let his voice trail off because he knew his mother understood all the things he'd never thought about his life at home.

"I know, baby," she said, putting an arm out and pulling him close. "It's a good thing. I don't know about you, but I can breathe again."

"Yeah," Blaine sighed, and rested his head on her shoulder.

"Here," she said, holding out the spoon for him to taste the sauce. "Try this."

He took a careful taste, and realized only after he'd pronounced the sauce just fine that his taste was tinged with tears.

* * *

"Do you want to drive up with me?" Kurt fingered the edges of his audition letter from Baldwin-Wallace, and raised his eyes from his comforter to meet Blaine's.

"Only if you want me to. I know you're going to be nervous, and I don't want to be in the way." Blaine knew why Kurt was asking, so he stopped and almost-held his breath while he waited for Kurt to finish his request.

"I want you to. I'm going to be nervous, and-"

"You need me to keep you calm." Blaine nodded, taking Kurt's hand over the top of the crisp paper.

"Please." Kurt's voice was a little shaky, and Blaine knew it was partly because Kurt hated to admit needing help with things connected to his voice and his ambitions.

"Of course, baby. I would  _love_ to go with you." Blaine shivered as Kurt ran a finger over the back of his hand.

"You should apply," Kurt said, closing his eyes to the motion of Blaine's hand in his hair. "You can do an English major with a creative writing concentration. We could go there together."

Blaine didn't say anything right away, and Kurt jumped at the silence. "I mean, I know it's a little late, but they have rolling admissions and you could use the same essays you sent to Iowa."

"Kurt, slow down." Blaine stilled his hand and tilted Kurt's face up towards his. "I already applied."  
"When?"

"Right after New Year's." Kurt's face lit up, but Blaine shook his head. "I'm not saying I'm going to go if I get in. I just thought I'd take a chance."

"Thank you," Kurt sighed. "I didn't think you  _wanting_ to go to the same school mattered to me. I mean, we never planned on doing that, even if we both ended up in the city."

"I know." Blaine stretched out next to Kurt, and ran his finger over the pattern on his bracelet. "Does it matter a  _lot_? I mean, if we  _didn't_ go to the same school, or the same city, what would that mean for us?"

Kurt leaned in and kissed Blaine, then, lips gentle and tongue firm, and Blaine thought that maybe  _nothing_ mattered as long as Kurt would keep kissing him like that.

"You asked me to marry you and I said yes," Kurt said when he pulled away. " _That's_  the important thing. Everything else, well. We'll figure it out, I guess."


	12. Chapter 12

It wasn't a long drive to B-W, a couple of hours, and they passed the time in companionable silence, Kurt sipping at a Rachel Berry-approved herbal tea with honey ( _she's lucky I kind of love her,_ Kurt sighed at Blaine as he merged onto the highway, _because this tastes like twigs and dirt)_ and trying to conserve his voice.

Blaine tucked himself into the curve of his seat and pulled a battered paperback out of his backpack. He tried to shift so Kurt couldn't see him, but Kurt's hand was snaking over the console to poke at the cover.

"What're you reading now?" Blaine was always amazed at Kurt's patience with his reading; sometimes he felt obsessed, like he just had to drown himself in words and pages, and sometimes that involved falling headlong into an epic series of some kind. Except that last night, he hadn't been able to find anything he really  _wanted_ to read, so he'd paced the house mumbling until his mother shoved the first of that weird time-traveling romance into his hands.

"If you don't like it, you don't have to keep reading, but it should get you through the night at least," she said, guiding him back up the hall to his bedroom.

So he started reading, and okay, it was  _romance_ , and it was straight romance at that, but it was also  _good_ , and an hour out of Lima he'd had enough sitting on his hands and he _needed_ to get back to Jamie and Claire.

"Just, um. Nothing, really. My mom gave it to me when I couldn't sleep last night." He tipped the cover toward Kurt so he could see out of the corner of his eye and tried not to be embarrassed.

"Ah." Kurt nodded and turned his attention back to the road. "Hot men in kilts. Jamie's a keeper. Such a shame that he's straight. But there is a gay character in the later books."

"When did you read these?" Because Blaine wanted to laugh at the idea of  _Kurt_ enjoying them, Kurt who loved nothing more than sweet gay-boy stories and the occasional mystery.

"Back in the fall." He shrugged. "What? It gave Carole and I something to bond over."

"Sure," Blaine teased lightly, taking Kurt's hand and stroking across the back with his thumb. "You're going to be amazing, you know."

"I'm glad you think so," Kurt said. "I'm more nervous than I was with NYADA."

"Maybe that means that this is the right place for you."

Kurt nodded, but his face was unreadable. "Maybe. I guess we'll find out." He sighed and glanced back at the book in Blaine's lap. "You can read if you want, I won't disturb you."

"No," Blaine said. "I'd rather just sit and hold your hand."

"Thank you," Kurt said with a smile. "I'd rather you do that, too."

* * *

After seeing Kurt settled into the line of other auditioners, he made his way to the student union. He figured he'd get a coffee and kill the hours with his book, or with the short story he was working on for his creative writing class. He still hadn't shown Kurt any of his stuff; he was too nervous, mostly because Kurt was the reason  _why_ he wrote, to get out all the things he still didn't know how to express.

He settled into an overstuffed chair and opened his laptop on his lap, and was just getting his document open when a slim boy with a skater-punk haircut plopped into the chair across from him.

"You don't go here," the boy said, studying him.

Blaine shook his head. "No, I don't. Maybe next year."

The boy nodded. "Prospective, huh?"

"Not quite. Well. Yes. But my boyfriend is here for an audition. I'm the moral support."

The boy made a face. "Oh. One of those theater people, huh?"

Blaine shuddered. Something in the boy's judging tone left Blaine feeling cold. "Something wrong with theater people?"

The boy shrugged. "Nothing, really, but the ones I've met act like they rule this place, and it doesn't seem right, you know? I mean, it's not like they're rock stars or anything."

Blaine laughed outright, because he saw himself on the steps at Dalton telling Kurt that the Warblers were exactly that. "No," he said, scrolling through to the end of his document and tapping his mouse to get himself situated. "I guess not. But I'd thought that a school with one of the top musical theater programs in the country would be a little more accepting of people who are a little different."

The boy just stared at him.

"What's your major?" Blaine held his breath, hoping it was something like German or Biology.

"Eh," the boy said with a wave of his hand. "Supposed to be English, but my classes are all these writer geeks. Not my scene, man."

Blaine slapped the lid of his laptop closed and hefted his backpack onto his shoulder. "And you're not my scene. I think I'll find other company for the day."

He picked his coffee up, careful not to slop any out of the lid, and turned on his heel. The boy's last parting words stung even worse than anything he'd said previously, and Blaine tried to pretend that he hadn't heard:  _you might look for the queers, then._

Blaine hadn't looked  _for the queers_. Instead, he found the library and hid out there in the stacks. Instead of his story, he'd opened a document and started what he hoped would work as his application to live in the GLBT focus house at Iowa. He wrote with fury and unshed tears and such  _hurt_  that someplace he'd hoped could be a home for Kurt ( _and for you_ , his brain told him) had shown him such ugliness.

_Not everyone is like that_ , he thought as he typed furiously.  _Every school has people like that awful, judgemental boy_.

But Blaine knew that no matter what happened with Kurt,  _he_ wouldn't be choosing B-W.

* * *

Blaine drove home, Kurt talking a mile a minute in an adrenaline haze as the road disappeared under the Nav's tires. "It was hard, but I didn't make any major mistakes, not even in the dance audition. Mike's going to be so pleased when I tell him."

Blaine just hummed and nodded.

"I'm sorry," Kurt said, breathless. "How was your day?"

"It was okay."

"But did you get to enjoy any of the campus? What did you think? Won't it be so great to be in the same place for college?" God, Blaine hated to burst Kurt's fantasy bubble.

"I can't," he said, paying very careful attention to the empty road ahead of them. "I met the most horrible person in the student union, and I  _know_  that the campus is probably full of friendly, acccepting people. But his judgment  _hurt,_ Kurt. I've been judged enough in my life, and I don't need it at someplace that's supposed to be a home to me."

"What are you saying?" Kurt sounded confused, and he shifted closer to Blaine, as close as he could get with the console in the way.

"I'm saying . . . I know you want us to be together for college, but even if I get in I don't think I can go to B-W." He didn't even want to get into what it felt like, trying so hard to want something that meant so much to Kurt even though his own dream was tied to Iowa.

"Oh." Kurt took his hand and held on silently.

* * *

Kurt's stomach dropped out of his body when Blaine said that he didn't want to go to B-W. He  _knew,_ of course, that Blaine wasn't implying anything at all about their relationship, he was just talking about  _college_. But Kurt had to ask, anyway.

"We're okay, right?" He didn't want to look at Blaine in case he started crying, but he let his thumb drift over the back of Blaine's knuckles.

Blaine huffed a sigh at the truck puttering along in front of them at 50 mph, signalled, and pulled over in the left lane to pass. "We're fine. I just- it didn't feel  _right_ to me, there."

"What kind of a feeling are you looking for?" Kurt was curious, because  _feeling_ wasn't something he'd noticed while choosing his schools. He cared about reputation, and how he'd be able to grow as a performer.

"I've never felt at home anywhere," Blaine said, focused intently on the road in front of him. "I mean, I have it with you, and it's amazing, but it's kind of like when I transferred. I needed to learn how to be in the world, you know? And now I need to know that I can find a home somewhere without you. Not- I mean, just-"

Kurt held Blaine's hand tight, squeezed to reassure him. "You're not breaking up with me."

"Oh,  _god_ , no. We're  _engaged_. Of course I'm not breaking up with you. I just think that I need to learn how to be me without you there to pick me up every day. College is where we get four years to grow."

"But what if we go to separate colleges and we grow  _apart_?" Kurt felt his heart thudding in his chest. He didn't know why he was so afraid of even the  _idea_ of losing Blaine.

"I guess that's a risk we take. But it could happen just as easily if we both went to B-W, or if you came to Iowa with me." Blaine shrugged. "We can do this, Kurt. We've both come so far, we can  _do_ this. We've survived worse things than being apart."

Kurt knew Blaine was right. They  _had_  survived harder things than what college would be. "Listen to you, talking like we're going to get in to our top choices," he tried to deflect, because he didn't want to think too long or too hard about what that distance would  _actually_ feel like.

"I know we are," Blaine said with startling confidence. "Because we're awesome like that."

Kurt thought that Blaine seemed entirely too upbeat,  _too_ confident, but he didn't say anything. He was too tired to dig any deeper than that, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before Blaine was breaking again.

He sighed, and let his eyes fall closed as he rested his head against the cool glass of the window.

Sometimes he wanted to break, too.

 


	13. Chapter 13

_You could come with me_ , Blaine typed into the chat window with shaking hands, not trusting his voice on the phone as he navigated from his acceptance letter to the linked page about an accepted students weekend.

_But I'm not going to Iowa_ , Kurt pinged back to him.

_Anything from NYADA?_ He wanted Kurt to just  _talk_ to him. God. It was like pulling teeth, had been since the disaster of the B-W visit.

_No. And nothing from B-W either, so stop asking_.

Wow. Okay.  _That_ was a blatant lie because Blaine could feel his own B-W acceptance poking at him from a hidden browser window, which meant that Kurt either hadn't gotten in or was keeping his acceptance private for some reason. Blaine didn't like either option.

_I'm not leaving you_ , he sent, and then typed in his rsvp to the weekend, a neat little green check mark next to  _yes, I'll be attending_.

_It feels like you are_ , Kurt replied, and Blaine's hands were still shaking when he punched Kurt's number on his phone.

It rang into his ear.  _Please answer_ , he sent.

_I think I need to be alone tonight, Blaine. Don't call again._ Then the ominous tiny print that Blaine hated:  _khummel is no longer signed into chat_.

Blaine shook his head, and tried to distract himself with meeting other accepted students on the Iowa discussion forum, but there was no helpful advice about what to do when your boyfriend was having a meltdown, so he finally gave up and went to bed early.

* * *

Kurt paced the length of his room, his head spinning and three browser windows open. Yesses from NYADA, B-W,  _and_ Iowa, but he'd never told Blaine he'd even applied, and not for musical theater there, just liberal arts. He didn't know how to make this choice, had firmly expected the admissions people to make it for him, and now he had no idea what to do.

"Hey, kiddo," his dad said, voice muffled through his closed door. "Sounds like you're wearing a path in the carpet."

"I'm okay, Dad."  _Please go away,_  he willed silently.  _I can't handle questions tonight._

"I didn't ask if you were okay, I was just wondering why the pacing?" His dad was always so gentle, prodding lightly until Kurt gave in and talked, but he didn't even know what to say.

"Blaine got into Iowa," Kurt sighed, and leaned against the door.

"And you? Don't pretend you didn't apply, because I saw the application fee on the credit card."

"Blaine doesn't know," Kurt said, the first time he'd admitted out loud that he'd kept that big a secret from the boy he loved. "I got in, too. And to NYADA,  _and_ to B-W."

"So what's the problem?" His dad made it sound like he had to pick a car, not a college.

Kurt slid down the door, to sit on the floor with his knees tucked up under his chin. "I can't say yes to Iowa because I don't want to be that guy."

"What guy?"

"The one who picks a college to stay with his high school boyfriend. I've  _never_  been that guy, and I'm not about to start now. And I feel like I can't pick B-W because Blaine won't. And NYADA is too far away, because I  _know_ Blaine is going to Iowa, and if I go to New York we'll never see each other."

"And if you told all of this to Blaine?" His dad's voice was coming from somewhere close to his own head, and Kurt smiled to think of his dad in an identical position on the other side of the door.

"He would tell me to pick the school that will prepare me best for what I want to do."

"Which is?"

"B-W."

"So what's the damn problem, Kurt. I don't understand. People go to different colleges all the time."

Kurt thought about how much stronger Blaine had grown since Christmas, since standing up to his father. How much more confident he was, and how he seemed to need Kurt a little less every day. "What- what if he grows  _away_ from me?"

Kurt could hear his dad sigh on the other side of the door. "I don't see it that way," he said, and there was a comforting certainty in his voice, almost like he'd thought about this before. "I think Blaine's growing  _into_ himself. And that's good, for both of you."

"But what if he grows and I  _don't_?" Because god, he'd been feeling nothing but  _stuck_ lately, and three college acceptances weren't doing a thing to help him feel any less un-stuck.

"I think you're worrying about a whole lot of nothing right now," his dad said, soothingly. "You two just need to make your decisions and work from there. Everything else will happen, or it won't, in its own time."

"You have faith," Kurt scoffed.

"And you should, kiddo. You and Blaine, you're solid. Permanent." Kurt could hear whispered of things unsaid, the  _like your mother and I were_ that he knew his father wanted to say, but couldn't because even now the memory of her broke them both.

"I'll try, Dad."

"Good. Now. Call that boy of yours or something, before he thinks you're upset with him."

But Kurt was already there, fingers itching for his keyboard, and he blinked in surprise when he logged on and saw  _blainewarbler is no longer in chat_.

He knew he'd be able to try and fix things in the morning, medium drip and blueberry muffin and an offer to carry Blaine's books to homeroom.

He just hoped it would be enough.

* * *

"It's just a weekend," Blaine said, tossing two t-shirts and a hoodie into his duffel bag and then watching as Kurt took them out, folded them neatly, and set them back inside. "We're going to be fine."

"I'm going to miss you," Kurt whispered.

"You'll watch movies with Tina and play video games with Puck and Finn. And next weekend, when you go up to B-W I'll do the same thing, and we'll be fine." He had to be sure of that, or else he was never going to get on the plane in Dayton.

"You sound confident," Kurt said, worrying at his bottom lip. Blaine loved that spot, loved to suck it between his lips when they kissed because it drove Kurt crazy.

Blaine sighed, and sat on the edge of his bed next to Kurt, three pairs of socks clutched tight in his hands. "I have to be, or I won''t be able to get on that plane tonight."

Kurt blinked, and looked at him, and Blaine was shocked to see that Kurt was trying not to cry. "Just- don't go changing on me too much."

Blaine gathered Kurt into his arms, shook his head.  _God_ , how he loved this boy. "It's only a weekend," he said fondly, but Kurt just clung to him like they'd be apart for a lifetime.

"It's  _never_  just a weekend," Kurt said, so softly that Blaine almost didn't hear him. He didn't reply; he  _couldn't_ , he just held on tighter.

* * *

Blaine's host for the weekend was a sophomore, Brian, who talked really fast and gestured with his hands a lot. But he lived in the glbt residence and sang in the co-ed chorus ( _I tried out for Intersection, but didn't make it this year,_ he'd admitted as he walked Blaine from the Admissions mixer to the glbt house), and when he heard that Blaine was going to major in English he started gushing over his favorite professor.

"It's why I transferred," he said, pausing to take a breath and open the door so that Blaine could shove his duffel and sleeping bag through into the residence's entryway. "I don't know if I'm going to go for the writing concentration, but I just didn't have as many options at my old school."

"So," Blaine said, doggedly following Brian up a flight of stairs, "you like it here?"

They stopped at a door with a wildly decorated corkboard and a small whiteboard covered in scribbled messages. Brian deftly unlocked the door and flung it open. "I  _love_ it here," he said. "Especially this house. You got in, right?"

"Yeah," Blaine nodded. "I did."

"It's awesome, feeling like a part of a community." Brian motioned for Blaine to set his things down. "I know there's some admissions event tonight, but it's movie night in the house, and some of the others want to meet you."

Blaine shrugged. He really didn't  _care_  what happened with his night, he just wanted to feel what college was like. "That's fine. I just . . ." He thought of Kurt, of how lonely and withdrawn he'd seemed when he left Blaine's house earlier that afternoon. He fished in his pocket for his phone and kind of waved it in the air. "I need to call my boyfriend. He's having a hard time with the whole college thing." And god, it felt  _awful_  to phrase it that way, especially to a stranger, because Blaine hadn't even been able to phrase it that way with  _Kurt_.

Hell, he hadn't been able to call it  _anything_ with Kurt, because they didn't talk about it at all, except in those weird moments like when Blaine was packing for the weekend, when he'd be so steamrolled by the ways Kurt kept coming undone that he didn't even know what to do or say to make things better.

"What, is he younger than you?" Brian kicked a pair of sneakers aside and flipped open a funny little chair that was suddenly a mattress. "Leila let me borrow her flip n' fuck, so you don't have to sleep on the floor."

Blaine's head was spinning, trying to keep up with everything. "Um. Okay. First of all, I'm not sure I heard you right. A  _flip n' fuck_?"

Brian flopped onto his bed. "Yeah. That's what we call these stupid chairs. They're not good for much else. Well. That and when one of us is hosting a wayward prospie." He grinned lopsidedly at Blaine. "Wherein  _you_ would be the wayward prospie in this scenario. But you were talking about your boyfriend. He's younger?"

"No," Blaine shook his head. "He's a senior too, but he's freaking out about us going to different schools even though he claims he doesn't want to be that guy who follows his high school boyfriend to college." Blaine twisted Kurt's bracelet around on his wrist, letting the pads of his fingers press into the raised edges of the design. The metal felt heavy, the same as it always did, and Blaine wanted to close his hand over the bracelet and pretend it was Kurt's hand, holding him. Keeping him focused and free.

He did, closed his eyes and breathed, only it didn't feel like Kurt's hand at all. It was, of course, his own hand, and instead of feeling floaty and lost without Kurt to ground him, he felt new and open and like all he needed to do was reach for the future he wanted and it would be his.

* * *

The movie was  _Milk_ , which Blaine had watched three times in the last month because, oddly, it soothed Kurt. Blaine really didn't care, he watched it again anyway, and bit back a snort of laughter during the birthday party scene when Josh Brolin raised his hands to the empty room and shouted  _Dan White's got an issue!_ because that made Kurt laugh, every time.

The other kids were nice, but not  _too_ eager or overly friendly. They were  _normal_ , Blaine realized, and wondered how long it had been since he'd been around alarmingly regular people. Only when the popcorn-throwing stopped and everyone was looking at him did he realize he'd spoken out loud.

"Wow," exclaimed the girl with the bright pink hair ( _Carrie_ , Blaine reminded himself even though she reminded him of Angry Quinn). "If  _we're_ normal, I'm not sure I want to meet your friends."

Blaine couldn't help but laugh away his embarrassment. "I spent two years at an all-boys boarding school, and I'm in show choir," he said, hoping that those two qualifiers would explain  _everything_.

"Oh, honey," Malik said, patting his knee from across the couch. " _Of course_ you're in show choir. We were  _all_ in show choir, or theater, or band. It's just what we do. We have to survive somehow."

"And now?" Blaine took the can of Sprite that Carrie held out to him, popped the top, and took a swig. It was warm, but he was thirsty.

"Eh," Malik said with a casual wave of his hand. "Now I'm just fabulous."

"He's a  _liar_ ," Brian said from where he was perched on the arm of the couch. "He might look forward to choir even more than  _I_ do, which is saying a lot."

Blaine looked around the room, at everyone piled kind of casually atop each other. They reminded him a bit of New Directions. "Will you all be living here again next year?" He had to know, because he liked the way they felt like a little family.

"Some of us might," Carrie said. "You have to apply every year, so," she left off without any more explanation.

"That's nice," Blaine sighed, feeling happy and sleepy.

"What classes are you going to tomorrow?" Carrie held out her hand, and Blaine fished his folded class assignments out of his pocket.

"Intro to Creative Writing and American Lit," he said, but Carrie unfolded the paper anyway.

"Why didn't you want to live in the writer's community?" she asked, handing the paper back to him. "I mean, if you're going to do the writing concentration . . ."

Blaine knew he could tell any handful of stories about being gay in a small town that these kids would understand. He could tell them about Sadie Hawkins, or Junior Prom, or Santana being outed; slushies and dumpsters and the kind of slurs that Kurt had experienced his whole life. But the only story he could think of was from last spring, right after prom, he and Kurt stopped at the Conoco on the outskirts of town for gas and snacks before going out to Columbus for Pride. The morning was still cool, and Blaine had his sweatshirt unzipped so that his t-shirt was halfway visible. Kurt's, fully obscured under his own sweatshirt said "It takes balls to be a fairy", and Blaine hadn't thought twice before ordering the "I kiss boys" shirt. When he'd gotten out of the car, Kurt had hissed at him to zip his sweatshirt,  _you can't_ _ **wear**_ _that in Lima_ echoing across the parking lot.

But Blaine had strode into the store with false confidence, picked out a Coke for him and a Sprite for Kurt, plus a bag of Chex Mix, a can of Pringles, and two bags of Peanut Butter M&M's, and paid before Kurt even finished pumping the gas. Back at the car, he'd tossed the bag of snacks into the passenger seat and then glanced around furtively before grabbing Kurt and kissing him, hard. He pulled away at the crunch of tires into the otherwise-empty parking lot.

"Shit, Blaine, you're going to get us killed," Kurt had scolded, and Blaine knew the memory of prom was front and center in Kurt's mind because Blaine was, like always, thinking of Sadie Hawkins.

Two older men, maybe Kurt's dad's age, climbed out of the front of the battered SUV on the other side of the pump, and the driver smiled at them. "I wish I'd been as brave in high school as you boys are," he'd said as he passed them. "Have a happy Pride."

"Kurt cried the whole way to Columbus," Blaine told the others now. "He wondered where everyone had been when he was being bullied every day, why the gay community in Lima was limited to him and our friend Rachel's kind of weird gay dads. He and I both managed to survive, but there are plenty of kids who don't." He thought of Dave Karofsky, finishing the school year from home, how broken he'd looked in the hospital, how lost. "I know who I am as a writer," he finally managed to say, "but I have no idea how to exist within the gay community because the community is invisible in Lima." He looked up from his hands to see the others nodding. "I don't want to be invisible."

"Oh, honey." Carrie's hand was on his shoulder, and he could hear her sniffling. "You won't be invisible here."

* * *

Kurt paced back and forth across his front porch until he heard the telltale squeak of Blaine's brakes making a hard turn; then he sat on the swing and waited for Blaine to park and climb the steps like he'd just been sitting there the whole time.

But Blaine always knew the truth.

"How long have you been pacing for?" Blaine pulled Kurt close into his chest, and Kurt tried to ignore the black t-shirt with yellow Iowa logo on the chest that felt stiff and very un-Blaine like.

"I think since your plane landed." Kurt burrowed further into Blaine's arms, and Blaine held him tighter. "I hate feeling like this."

"Like what?" Blaine tugged him over to the swing, and sat before pulling Kurt down essentially into his lap.

"Like I'm falling apart all the time. I don't know what's wrong with me, I  _hate_ high school and I always thought I wouldn't be able to wait to go to college, but now I can't seem to bear the thought of it."

Blaine snaked his fingers through Kurt's and squeezed. "What's the problem with college, Kurt?"

Kurt closed his eyes as Blaine used his foot to start the swing moving. "What if it doesn't measure up to what I thought it would?"

"Then you wait," Blaine said. "Things will get better, or you'll transfer, or something. You'll find your place, Kurt. I  _know_ you will."

Kurt didn't even realize he was moving until he was standing, Blaine still on the swing staring like he didn't even know Kurt. "I'm  _sick_  of waiting. Why do we  _always_  have to be waiting, Blaine? It's never going to get better, people are never going to change. It's 2012 and I can't hold your hand in public without being afraid that we're going to get attacked. I couldn't marry you right now, even if we  _were_  ready. The world is  _never_ going to be ready for us, and four years apart at college isn't going to change that."

"What  _is_ four years going to change?" Blaine looked puzzled, like he didn't understand.

"God. Do I have to spell it out for you?" Kurt could feel the tension in his hands where they were balled at his hips.

"Please," Blaine said with a kind of condescending smile.

Kurt tried to bite back the words, the fears, all the things he'd been trying not to think about since he'd sent in the last of his college applications. "What if four years changes  _us?_ "

Blaine patted the swing next to him, and Kurt sat willingly, tucking himself into the contours of Blaine's body. Blaine smoothed his hair and shushed at him, and Kurt gave in to the feel of Blaine's fingers and the gentle motion of the swing. "Then we deal with it," Blaine said, matter-of-factly. "You were a person before me, and if things change between us, you'll still be a person after me."

"But I wasn't  _whole_ before I met you," Kurt said.

"I know," Blaine replied, swinging a little harder. "I wasn't, either."

* * *

Kurt always thought that he'd seen a lot and met a lot of people, being in show choir. But he'd never expected the sheer volume of gay boys at the theater department mixer.  _They can't all be from Ohio_ , he pondered as he carefully poured a ladle-full of punch into an inadequate plastic cup.  _And if they_ _ **are**_ _, where have they been my whole life?_

It was slightly disorienting.

As was the fact that his student host, Ethan, was disarmingly straight. "I know," Ethan said at Kurt's laugh, leading him through a maze of buildings to his dorm. "Odd, right? I suppose I should be grateful, I have half the girls in the department throwing themselves at me. But I really just want to focus on school, so." He shrugged, and Kurt liked him already even though he hadn't expected to.

"I have rehearsal tonight," Ethan said, holding the door open. "You can come with, if you want, or go to the planned activities."

"You really get parts as a freshman?" Kurt hadn't believed it, when he'd read it in the literature, because lots of the larger universities  _never_ gave parts to freshmen.

"Yeah," Ethan replied. "Not always big, and not always in the big shows, but everything is an opportunity to learn and expand your craft. You should audition for  _everything_ , even the stuff you don't want to touch with a ten-foot pole." He twisted up his face. "Last semester, I played the Mute in  _The Fantasticks._ I spent most of the show standing there holding a stick. But it was experience."

Kurt nodded, dropping to the floor in Ethan's room, a slightly shaggy patch of dark green carpet bordered by two sloppily made beds and stacks of books. "My school actually did a musical this year.  _West Side Story_. It was the first musical they've actually gotten past two weeks of rehearsal in four years."

"What part did you have? Because, don't take this wrong, but you don't strike me as the Tony  _or_ Jets type."

Kurt laughed, finally able to let the sting of those early fall days wash over him with sweeter memories of Blaine's half-lit bedroom and the overwhelming feeling of being in love. "I was Officer Krupke. I think my boyfriend is  _still_ upset that I stole his spotlight."

Ethan smiled at him, completely unfazed at the mention of a boyfriend. "Where's he going int he fall?"

"Iowa," Kurt sighed. "He wants to be a writer, and I guess they have a really good program there. It's funny," he said with a shrug, "Blaine's more of a performer than I am, and it kind of surprised me that he didn't want to chase  _that_ dream."

"Hey, I didn't even know my ex-girlfriend wanted to be a freaking engineer until we were applying to school and I'm all  _musical theater_  and she's  _MIT_ and  _CalTech_!"

"But- it wasn't the distance that broke you guys up, was it?" Kurt felt almost desperate, because no matter how many times Blaine and his dad tried to reassure him that everything would be fine, he couldn't help feeling like he was counting down the last days of his relationship.

"No," Ethan replied. "It was all the people in her program asking her if she was  _sure_ I wasn't gay because I was in a theater conservatory."

"Well.  _That' s_ not something Blaine will have to worry about," Kurt deadpanned.

Ethan snorted, and raised an eyebrow at Kurt. "Are you sure you're not interested in comedy?"

Kurt flung his hands out a là Rachel. "Musical theater is my  _life_ ," he intoned with mock seriousness.

"Like I said," Ethan said with a smile. "Comedy."


	14. Chapter 14

"It went okay, then," Blaine said, dropping his backpack to the floor and sliding Kurt's mocha across the table to him before settling into his own chair.

"Mmmm," Kurt licked a strip of whipped cream off his straw. "It was good. Better than I'd expected."

"I can see that," Blaine replied with a smile at the tiny Baldwin Wallace Theater pin on the strap of Kurt's bag. "You're not a t-shirt kind of guy. So you had fun?"

"Ethan might be the only straight guy in the whole department," Kurt sighed. "I went to his play rehearsal. It wasn't a musical, it was a straight play, and it was  _good_. He was good in it."

"What was the show?"

Kurt shrugged. " _Isn't_   _it Romantic_. I'd never heard of it, but I guess the playwright won a Tony and a Pulitzer, for a different play. It was kind of quirky, but Ethan was good in it. He played this crazy Russian cab driver, accent and everything."

Blaine watched Kurt chew at his lip. "What's got you worked up?" he asked, sliding his hand over to rest against Kurt's; they still didn't really hold hands in public, even though Blaine caught Kelly, the Lima Bean's afternoon barista, rolling her eyes at him.

"It just feels real, now," Kurt sighed. "I mean, we're leaving in four months. We're  _really_ leaving Lima, and the world is about to get really big."

Blaine winked at Kelly and took Kurt's hand in both of his. "You'd rather the world stayed small."

"No," Kurt said with a slight shake of his head. "Sometimes I just wish we had more time for reading out loud and Chinese food. I'm going to have to memorize you, before I let you go."

"Four months," Blaine said with a sigh. "We have four months," holding Kurt's hand tight and pulling him up out of his chair, slinging both their bags over his shoulder and dragging Kurt out to the Nav, their coffees forgotten on the table, just so that Blaine could spend a few minutes before school doing a little memorizing of his own.

* * *

Only, four months was never going to be enough, not with Nationals and finals and graduation, and the Hudson-Hummel family vacation, and Blaine and his mother taking a long-delayed post-divorce trip to Maine with his grandparents.

Then there was the paperwork: medical forms and disclosure notices about student loans and parent loans and Kurt's work study in the library. Kurt's housing assignment came in mid-July, both of them still sunburned from their trips and both of them really just wanting to sit in the air conditioning and drink gallons of lemonade instead of thinking about miniscule refrigerators and who was going to bring the tv.

After witnessing the negotiations, Blaine was awfully glad he was going to have a single.

The first week in August Blaine took an afternoon when Kurt was working to go to Sheets n' Things and pick out his bedding and towels and everything, because he knew that if he went with Kurt he'd give in and end up with obscene thread counts and colors he wouldn't like, because he can't say no to Kurt, not ever, and what he really wanted for his room was warmth and darkness and a bed that he can curl up and write in when the missing gets to be too much.

He was pushing a massive cart carefully through the towels, trying not to send sherbert-colored terry cloth tumbling onto the floor, when he accidentally locked wheels with another cart parked willy-nilly in the aisle.

"Sorry," he muttered, tugging his backwards and trying to disengage the wheel.

"Nah, my fault," a soft voice said, and Blaine lifted his eyes to see Dave Karofsky staring at him, slightly shocked.

"Dave," Blaine sighed. "I didn't-  _sorry_ ," he stammered, because he didn't know what to say. He'd only seen Dave once, right after the hospital, and he hated that he was too scared of his  _own_ head to have made any kind of an effort to be a friend, even though he knew Kurt still went and spent time with Dave a couple of times a week.

"Blaine." Dave ran his eyes over the flannel sheets, down comforter, and flannel duvet cover in Blaine's cart. "You know Kurt's never going to approve," he said with a chuckle.

"Why do you think I'm doing this when he's working?" Blaine eyeballed Dave's cart, the plastic bed risers and shower caddy and a pile of maroon and blue striped towels. "Where are you- Kurt never said-"

"Colorado. Um, CU? In Boulder?" Dave bit at his lip, but he only looked nervous, not  _anxious_.

"You playing football?" It was the worst kind of small talk, but Blaine didn't know how to do anything else around this boy who once wanted to hurt Kurt.

"Nah," Dave shook his head. "I might try to walk on for hockey, but I'm going for engineering. Kurt said you're going to Iowa?  _Iowa?_ "

"What's wrong with Iowa?" Blaine shrugged, and smiled sheepishly. "I know, Kurt swears that no self respecting gay man would go to college there after growing up in Ohio, but I like it there."

"That's important," Dave said. "So you want to be a writer?"

"Yeah."

Dave blinked, and patted at his pockets before pulling out his phone and frowning at it. "My father wants to know if I need pillow shams. What the  _hell_ is a pillow sham? I gotta-" he waved, tugging on his cart and jerking it sideways to free the wheel.

"Yeah," Blaine said with a wave of his own. "I'm glad you're doing better, Dave."

"Thanks," Dave said, moving past Blaine toward the sheets and then pausing before he continued. "Blaine?"

"Yeah?"

"When you're published, make sure you tell our stories. For all of us."

"I will. I promise."

* * *

Blaine sighed happily at the weight of Kurt's leg tossed over his own, Kurt's heart still racing hard against Blaine's cheek. "I saw Dave today," he said, lifting his head to kiss at a stubborn smear of engine grease just below Kurt's cheek. "He seems happy."

"He's getting there," Kurt sighed, and swatted at Blaine. "That  _tickles_. And you know as well as I do that it's a process. I think college will be good for him."

"He asked me to make sure I tell our stories, when I start getting published."

Kurt shifted, propped himself up on his elbows. Blaine enjoyed the feeling of Kurt's body curling under his head, so he didn't move. "What did you tell him?"

"I promised I would," Blaine replied, dipping his tongue into the hollow of Kurt's bellybutton. "They're the only stories I know how to tell."

* * *

The drifting started slowly, with Finn off to Georgia right after Fourth of July, and Kurt spent most of the rest of the month tiptoeing past his empty bedroom like he was only just inside sleeping instead of in a barracks.

Kurt also spent a lot of late nights talking with Carole over decaf iced tea, his dad in and out of the house as the strange Congressional summer schedule allowed. As it got closer to the middle of August, though, his dad was home more and Kurt's late night talking skills were put to use by Mercedes and Rachel both needing advice on clothes and dorm furnshings, and by Tina who just needed someone to hold her hand and make her laugh after Mike left to go down to the Joffrey in Chicago.

"I think I'm going to apply to Northwestern, and University of Chicago," Tina said, standing her spoon in the middle of the carton of Chocolate Peanut Butter and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"That's good," Kurt said with a nod. "How are you still breathing?"

Tina shook her head. "I'm not. I'm just floating, and I hate being that girl, the one who can't make it six hours without her boyfriend. How am I going to make it until I can see him again?"

"I don't know," Kurt replied, his own tears making the chocolate bitter. "When you figure it out, will you teach me? Because I'm scared that I'm going to float, too."

The night that Santana left, Brittany climbed in his bedroom window just shy of 3 am, and he just took her by the hand and led her across the hall to Finn's room, where Tina was curled up tight into a ball on Finn's bed. Then he sat in the dark of his own room and called Blaine.

"I can't take care of them, Blaine," he said, blinking around the tears that he couldn't seem to control now that his room was half-packed and there were only five days left to cross off on his calendar. "I can barely take care of myself right now, and I have no idea how to make it better for them, because I can't even make it better for  _myself_."

"I know," Blaine said, whisper-soft and sniffly, and Kurt  _knew_  that Blaine was crying, and he wondered why they could never get their acts together to cry  _with_ each other.

"This would be easier if we could just cry in front of each other," Kurt finally said with a laugh and a gentle dab of a tissue.

"If I cry in front of you, I'll never be able to stop," Blaine admitted.  
"I'd started worrying that you weren't going to miss me at all," Kurt said, slipping back under his sheets.

"I'm going to miss you more than I can tell you," Blaine replied.

Kurt closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Why don't you act like it? You act like it's this big adventure, like you're excited. Like I don't matter to you."

"Oh, god. Baby." Kurt could hear Blaine, then, breaking in the worst way, and Kurt wished that Blaine weren't all the way across town and that it was closer to dawn than the dark of night. "I-  _Kurt._  You're the  _most_ important thing to me. But I can't- if I think about it at all, I'd never be able to go. I don't know how to do this any better than you do, I'm just better at pretending."

"I wish you weren't so good at wearing masks," Kurt sighed. "I love you, but you're really frustrating sometimes."

"I wish I weren't so good at the masks, either," Blaine whispered. "How about a new deal? No masks for the next five days, from either of us."

"Deal," Kurt said, his mind going fuzzy with emotion and fatigue.

"Go back to sleep, Kurt. I love you, and I'll see you in the morning."

Kurt hummed, and let his phone fall from his ear. Morning had a good sound to it.

* * *

Blaine wished that he could just wrap himself up in Kurt, keep them both safe and isolated on a little island for the time they had left, but there were  _obligations_  and  _family_ , and Blaine hated having to restrain himself from touching Kurt in public. Instead, he saved it all up for the private moments, the nights when Burt, startlingly, didn't make Blaine go home, as if he knew that they needed each other more desperately with every dwindling hour.

He could feel the hunger crawling through his body even though they'd already spent hours touching and fucking, even though his limbs were jittery and Kurt was completely gone, boneless and dead asleep around him.

He brushed a limp lock of hair from Kurt's forehead, but Kurt didn't even stir.  _I love you like breathing_ , he whispered into the dark.  _I don't know how I'm going to be able to even open my eyes without you_.

"Mmmm," Kurt sighed in his sleep, and tucked his body closer against Blaine.

Blaine tightened his arms around the boy who had stolen his heart on a curving staircase, around the  _man_ he wanted to build the rest of his life with, and even though his heart was more whole than it had ever been in his life, he couldn't help feeling like the edges of it were crumbling to dust.

* * *

"You're not even going three hours away. You  _could_ come home on a weekend, if you forget something." Burt tipped his head sideways and stared at the back of the Nav, full of boxes and bags.

"I don't know what I might  _need_ ," Kurt said, closing the back. Blaine could hear what Kurt hadn't said, though, and smiled as he tugged Kurt close for a sweaty hugh.

"You don't know what you're going to need to make you feel human," he whispered into Kurt's ear, low enough for only the two of them.

"Yeah," Kurt said, his voice breaking.

"Hey," Blaine kissed Kurt's forehead. "Why don't you go shower, huh? You'll feel better, and then we can go eat."

"Okay," Kurt nodded, and Blaine stood in the driveway watching him walk back up to the house. Once Kurt was inside with the door closed, Burt's hand was heavy on Blaine's shoulder.

"Your mom missing you yet?" Burt's voice was gruff, tinged with concern. "She doesn't mind you staying here?"

Blaine shook his head. "She, um. She understands? And she knows that we'll have almost a week, her and I, before I go too." She'd held him, tight, when he'd gone home for a change of clothes that morning.  _Come home to me tomorrow, baby,_  she'd said.  _I'll take care of you._ "She knows it's hard for us both."

"Yeah," Burt sighed, pulling his ball cap off and rubbing his forehead. "Yeah," he said again. "I see it, too. He's not going to break, though, and neither are you. You guys've been through too much to let  _college_  do this. You gotta promise me, kid. Kurt  _loves_ you, more than he loves himself I think, and if you guys aren't gonna make it, maybe it's better to let each other go."

"No!" Blaine felt almost frantic to reassure Burt. "Oh,  _god_ , it's not like that at  _all_!"

"Why don't we have something to drink and you can tell me what it  _is_ like, because I've got eyes, and you two look like you're holding onto ghosts."

Blaine leaned back against the hot exterior of the Nav, felt the metal almost burning him under his t-shirt, but the heat felt good, real, in a way that nothing else did right then. "I'm so in love with him, and neither of us know how to  _do_  this. How do I  _do this_?"

Burt leaned next to him. "It's not even close to the same thing, and I shouldn't compare it at all, but when Kurt's mom died I didn't know how to do it, either, but I started every day by just getting up and putting my feet on the floor. Sometimes, that's all you  _can_ do, and after enough days of that, you realize that you've passed months. You boys are lucky. When you say goodbye tomorrow, it'll be three months before you see each other again."

"Put my feet on the floor?" Blaine shook his head, because it seemed too easy.

Burt nodded. "Every morning."

"I can- I can do that," Blaine muttered, thinking that it sounded like an awfully simple way of getting by, but he wouldn't complain if it actually worked.

* * *

They didn't sleep, not really. Not fully. They drifted, gently in and out of sleep to kiss and taste and touch, hands and mouths and bodies pressing and moving. They didn't speak, except to utter words of need and want,  _please_  and  _there_  and  _oh, god, more_ , Blaine laying himself bare and letting Kurt take him.

It felt like the only remaining thing he had left to give to Kurt, and he sure as hell wasn't going to  _sleep_ until Kurt had taken every last cell of Blaine's heart and made it his own.

Blaine thought that maybe it was close to 4 am by the time they were both aching and shaky and, finally, spent, and even though he desperately wanted Kurt to hold him, he turned on his side and held Kurt, just so he could memorize the weight of Kurt's body, heavy with sleep and satisfaction, in his arms.

When he woke, the clock on Kurt's nightstand read 7:23 am and he was alone.

"He said he needed to do it alone," Burt said, blinking through red-rimmed eyes and pushing an empty mug across the table to Blaine. "There's coffee in the pot."

"He didn't say-" Blaine's throat tightened around the words, and he suddenly understood. Kurt hadn't said goodbye because he'd promised, over a year ago, that he'd never say goodbye to Blaine.

The realization hit him like an electric shock, and he sort of went limp and fell into the chair across from Burt. "Shit," he sighed, and rubbed his eyes. Sorry."

Burt waved his apology off. "No worries. You sure you're okay?"

"No," Blaine said, rubbing at his eyes and willing himself not to cry. "But I kind of don't have a choice, do I? Putting my feet on the floor, and all."

"He should have at least told you he was leaving," Burt said, running a finger over the rim of his mug. "That's not- that's not like Kurt."

"He promised me he wouldn't," Blaine said. "A lifetime ago, he promised me."

"Hmmm," Burt nodded. "Yeah. That's Kurt, he always keeps his promises."

Blaine fiddled with his bracelet.  _Kurt's_ bracelet. Even though Kurt's absence hurt, he smiled faintly. "Good, because he made me a hell of a promise."

* * *

They talked every night, and Kurt kept texting random one-line commentary from his different orientation events. It made Blaine feel, almost, like he was a part of things, and it gave him something to laugh over while he taped the last of his boxes and loaded them into the car, as he tried not to think too hard about leaving his childhood home. It hadn't always been happy, but in the last six months it had been so much better.

_You have a week's advantage,_  he sent to Kurt just shy of 1 am Friday morning.  _Any advice?_

Kurt's reply pinged back in seconds.  _Just be yourself. And remember that I love you._

Blaine wandered down to the kitchen for a glass of milk, only to find his mother curled up at the table with the crossword puzzle from the previous Sunday.

"I'll make you warm milk, if you want," she offered, but Blaine shrugged her off.

"No," he said. "I just couldn't sleep. Too nervous."

"I remember," she said with a fond smile. "Would you feel better if we left now instead of waiting till the morning?"

"It's the middle of the night!" Blaine gestured at his sweatpants and t-shirt, his mother's pajama pants and cotton bathrobe.

"Think of it as an adventure," she laughed, setting her paper and pen on the table. "I'll race you! Last one ready has to drive through Chicago!"

Blaine was sure nobody would believe him when he told them of leaving Lima before 3 am, two enormous coffees in the cupholders and a box of donuts from Pat's balanced on his knees, singing old '80's songs with his mother.

_Drive safe,_  Kurt texted on hearing the news.  _Let me know when you get there._

_I will_ , Blaine sent back.  _Go to sleep. I love you._

_I love you, too_.

Blaine closed his phone, and his eyes, and let the motion of the tires and his mother singing Belinda Carlisle lull him to sleep.

 


	15. Chapter 15

Blaine's room was small, tucked kind of under the stairs with one sloping wall and a window that looked out onto a tiny expanse of roped off dirt.

"Looks like maybe there's a garden," his mom said, shaking the fitted sheet out over his mattress.

Blaine rolled his eyes and kicked a box of books across the floor. "It just looks like dirt," he frowned, eyeing the tiny three-shelf bookcase. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought all these books? I don't think I'm going to have space for all of them."

His mother shrugged. "I guess we'll have to go shopping, then. But  _after_ we unpack everything else, because I only want to have to make one trip to Target."

"I could send some books home." Blaine settled in, cross-legged, on the floor and began stacking his favorites on the top shelf.

His mother chuckled as she worked, tucking the blanket and top sheet into tight hospital corners. " _My_ son, send books home? I don't think so. Let's finish up and we'll hit the store, and get you back for that assembly or whatever."

"Is it still considered an assembly when it's college?" Blaine let his finger linger on the spine of The Giver, the signed copy Kurt had given him that first Christmas when they were still tiptoeing the line of not-boyfriends.

"Don't feel like you have to go to every event," a voice said from behind him. Blaine turned, and smiled at Carrie, her hair now a brilliant purple, who was leaning in the doorway with a foil-covered plate in her hands.

"Hey," he said. "You're going to corrupt me before classes even start."

"Not corrupting, just trying to save you. If you go to  _everything_ in that orientation packet, you'll be exhausted by tomorrow night. Here." She pushed the plate toward him. "Welcome brownies, for our newest housemate."

Blaine took the plate and sighed happily. "Oh, they're still warm!"

Carrie shrugged. "There's a kitchenette, I like to bake. And I wanted to make sure you were settling in okay."

"Blaine's worried that he's brought too many books," his mother said, and Blaine flushed.

"Mom!" Blaine protested. "Don't embarrass me."

Carrie just nodded. "I haven't met an English major yet who didn't have too many books. Blaine's in good company." She stuck her hand out to his mother. "And I'm Carrie, by the way. I met Blaine when he was here in the spring."

"Nice to meet you, Carrie. And thanks for the brownies. Blaine loves chocolate, and he needs a friend," his mom said with a wink.

"Oh,  _god,_ " Blaine groaned, turning back to his bookcase. "I'm just going to be over here, since I apparently have a social committee now."

"Blaine doesn't have a lot of girl friends," his mother continued, and she unfolded his duvet and held one end out to Carrie. "This is a two person job, getting it into the cover. Will you help?"

* * *

"It was mortifying," Blaine told Kurt later that night, warm and drowsy in his bed, listening to crickets through his open window.

"It's not like she was trying to fix you up or anything," Kurt said. "I mean, she knows you're gay. She was just trying to help."

"I'm 18, I can make friends on my own." But Blaine knew his words were forced, and Kurt's silence told him everything. "Okay," he finally gave in. "I'm not so good at the friends thing."

"I know you're happy you're in a single," Kurt began, "but I have to say, even though Peyton and I are really different, it's nice to have  _someone_ I can talk to at the end of the day. It's a little less lonely, that way."

"There are people here," Blaine replied half-heartedly, because while there  _were_ other people in the house, the third floor was only four rooms and the other three were vacant until upperclassmen moved in.

"Yeah,  _Carrie_. Just- we're used to having each other, baby. I don't want you to shut people out because you're not used to making friends. You need to try."

"Like  _you're_ trying?" Blaine dug, maybe more forcefully than he'd meant, because Kurt had done nothing but tell him horror stories about the other kids in his program, all of them stuck together for hours every day in dance class and stagecraft and acting and musical theater workshop.

"A bunch of us went down to Cincinnati today for dance stuff. It was- it was  _fun_ ," Kurt said, like he was surprised. Like he'd forgotten how to have fun with someone who wasn't Blaine. "It turns out they're nice people, when we're not competing in class."

"Maybe it takes a little time, to get settled." Blaine tugged his comforter up tight under his chin. "I miss you," he sighed.

"Yeah," Kurt said, and Blaine thought he sounded sad. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"You should go to sleep," Kurt prodded, gently. "I know my first few nights I didn't sleep well, so don't be surprised if that happens to you. Strange place, and all."

"Talk to you tomorrow?" It was silly to ask, because they talked every day, but Blaine needed the security of knowing that they  _would_ talk, every day.

"I'll call you when I'm done, I have yet another meeting or something after dinner."

"Goodnight, Kurt," Blaine said, and he could almost hear Kurt smile.

"Goodnight, Blaine."

* * *

"That frisbee kid is  _totally_  checking you out," Carrie teased, looking up from her sign language book and frowning. "No, no. Make the letter sign for T with  _both_  hands. Like  _this_." She arranged Blaine's hands into the correct position. " _Now_  move them forward.  _Truck_."

Blaine side-eyed the kid with the frisbee. "He's  _not_ , and I'm  _engaged_  anyway, so who cares? And  _why_ are you teaching me sign, again?"

"An after-dinner ice cream says I'm right, that he's  _totally_  into you." She nudged him with her elbow. "And I'm teaching you to sign because if I can teach you, and you're  _hopeless_  at languages, then I can teach kids. Besides, it's good for kids with speech delays to learn sign. It helps with language acquisition. Show me again.  _Truck_."

Blaine frowned at his hands, tried to fumble them into the right position, but his thumbs didn't want to stay tucked between his fingers. "I can't," he said, and almost jumped when his phone started chiming.

"Dork," Carrie said, gathering her book and her blanket. "Saved by your boyfriend. Come get me on your way to dinner."

Blaine waved at her, and tucked his phone against his ear. "Hey, you. I thought you had jazz this afternoon."

"The teacher is sick, so we got a repreive. This week, at least. So, I figured I could either take the hour and a half and study, or I could call you."

"Because talking with each other is  _so_ much better than studying," Blaine smiled and dropped his highlighter onto the open pages of his course packet.

"What are you doing for fall break?" Kurt sounded breathless, like he was walking.

"I figured I'd stay here. It seems silly, to go home for just a long weekend." Blaine knew that a whole crowd of kids in his house were staying, and there'd been some whispers about having a party or something.

"My Friday classes are all cancelled, and my French professor told us yesterday that she's taking off early for her own break, so I'm done at noon on the Thursday. I was thinking, maybe, I mean, if you want. I could, um. Fly out and visit you?"

Blaine's heart leaped into his throat. "Really?" he squeaked. "Really? You would- you would  _do_ that? For me?"

"For us," Kurt said softly. "Yes. Tell me yes, Blaine. I'll book the flight as soon as I get back to my room.

"Yes. Please, yes." Blaine stretched out on his blanket, turned his face to the sun and the lightly swaying tree branches. "I would  _love_ that."

"Good," Kurt answered. "I have to climb stairs now. I'll email you the flight info, and I'll talk with you tonight?"

"Of course," Blaine sighed, happy and excited. "Three weeks."

"Three weeks," Kurt repeated, and hung up.

Sudden movement in Blaine's space made him open his eyes and sit up. The kid who'd been watching him earlier was standing at the edge of the blanket, fumbling with his frisbee. "Sorry, man," he said. "Didn't mean to startle you."

Blaine shook his head. "No problem. I'd've gotten out of you way if I'd been paying attention."

"Good news?" The kid nodded to Blaine's phone, which he was still clutching in his hand.

"The best," Blaine said with a smile. "My boyfriend's coming to visit!"

"Oh," the kid said with a small frown. "Sorry I bothered you," he apologized before turning and walking away. Blaine watched him cross the grass to a larger group of boys, shaking his head and saying something.

_Huh_ , Blaine thought.  _I guess Carrie was right._  He slid his phone open and typed quickly,  _you were right. I guess I owe you an ice cream._

He set to work gathering his books and his blanket when Carrie's reply dinged.  _told you so. dork._

Blaine laughed, and if he hadn't been quite so self-conscious he might have skipped back to the house.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Blaine jostled his knee up and down under the lab table, and tried for a third time to light the flame under the bunsen burner.

"Dude, relax," his lab partner Kevin scowled at him. "We don't need to burn the place down."

"I can't-" Blaine checked the clock for about the fiftieth time since lab had started, but only half an hour had passed. "I should've asked to go to lab earlier this week."

"What's got you all worked up?" Kevin nudged Blaine aside and lit the burner, and settled their beaker over the flame.

"My boyfriend is coming to visit. He should be here by the time lab is over."

"Gotcha," Kevin said. "OK, here. I'll do the experiment, you record the data. And in two weeks, when my girlfriend comes in for a long weekend, you can return the favor."

"Okay," Blaine replied, and took the data sheet that Kevin slid across the table. He would have to pay careful attention, which meant that he couldn't think about Kurt, about  _kissing_ Kurt for the first time in six weeks, or about any of the number of things he wanted to do to Kurt,  _with_ Kurt, before the weekend was over.

"Dude," Kevin laughed, waving a hand in front of Blaine's face. "Do I even want to  _know_ what you're thinking about?"

Blaine blushed hotly. "No." He shook his head. "You most definitely  _do not_ want to know."

"Focus, okay? We'll knock this out, and maybe we'll even be done early, and you can go be with your boy."

"Yeah, okay," Blaine said, and tried again to pay attention.

It went better, the second time around. He was able to follow along with the experiment, and he filled in all the boxes on Kevin's lab paper before copying the information carefully over into his own worksheet. He helped put away the materials, though Kevin carefully took all the glass items away to wash them before Blaine could break anything. They finished just before 3:30, and Blaine followed Kevin outside on shaky legs.

"Why am I nervous?" he wondered aloud.

"'Cause you haven't seen each other in weeks, and talking on the phone isn't the same. Not even  _close_  to the same," Kevin shook his head. "I'm all tied up in knots," he admitted to Blaine as they crossed the Quad. "Sarah's been gone for what feels like  _ages_ , 'cause she plays field hockey and had to report at the beginning of August. I can't  _wait_ to see her." He shrugged. "We've been together since we were 15. How about you and your guy?"

"Kurt? Oh. We've been together a little over a year, friends for two years." They came to the cross in the path where Blaine usually turned for the house. "I get off here. Thanks for the lab."

Kevin waved him away. "No worries. I got your back. Enjoy your weekend."

"I will," Blaine said with a smile, and he all but ran back to the house. He rounded the corner to climb the front steps, hoping that Kurt was already inside, and he pulled up short because Kurt wasn't  _inside_ , he was sitting on the top step of the porch with a backpack at his feet and a paperback book in his hand.

"Hey," Blaine whispered, and Kurt lifted his head from his book and blinked.

"Hi," he said, almost shy, and Blaine had to hold back from throwing himself into Kurt's space.

"I really want to kiss you," he said softly, stepping closer, "but I know I'm not going to be able to stop at kissing, and I don't want either of us to get in trouble for public nudity, so." He chewed at his bottom lip and held his hand out to Kurt.

Kurt took it and pulled himself to his feet, tucking his book into his backpack and shouldering it. "Yeah," he laughed. "That would be unfortunate. Take me to your room?"

"Yes." Blaine led Kurt inside, through the common room and up the stairs. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he didn't have words. He knew he didn't really need words, either, because he was going to be able to show Kurt, soon.  _So soon_ , he thought over and over as their feet moved them up and up and up, until he was fumbling his key in the lock and they were both tumbling into his room, backpacks making twin  _thuds_ as they hit the floor.

"Oh, god," Kurt said, voice rough and deep, just burying his face in the crook of Blaine's neck. "I forgot what you smell like. I  _missed_ you," he sighed, his arms around Blaine like a vise.

Blaine grabbed Kurt's head in both his hands and kissed him, hard and deep, until they were both breathless. "Not enough time," he growled out, his hands frantic against Kurt's clothes. "Please, Kurt. I need you."

Kurt kept kissing Blaine back, even as he tugged at his bootlaces with one hand. "Need you, too. So much, so much."

"Too many  _clothes_ ," Blaine whined once Kurt's boots had been kicked into the middle of the floor and Blaine was left with just Kurt's dark jeans and button-down shirt to deal with.

Kurt cocked his head and smiled teasingly. "Says the boy in a  _hoodie_. A  _hoodie,_ Blaine,  _really_?"

Blaine stripped the offending sweatshirt over his head, as well as the t-shirt he had on underneath. "Easy to take off, and you're lucky I actually got dressed for class today. Yesterday I overslept and wore pajama pants to Spanish."

Kurt picked at the buttons on his shirt. "I send you to Iowa and you turn into such a  _boy_."

Blaine pushed into Kurt's space, took his hand. "I've  _always_  been a boy," he said, pressing Kurt's palm against the front of his jeans, where he was hard and aching. "I've been like this all fucking  _day_ , Kurt. God.  _Please_ , get  _rid_  of your clothes because I need to fuck you before I  _die_."

Kurt hummed, and worked the buttons slower. "So demanding," he said with a smirk. "I think I should make you wait."

"No waiting," Blaine pleaded. "Not. Enough.  _Time_."

"I know," Kurt said, moving closer. "Help me, then." They peeled Kurt's clothes away together, and Blaine marvelled at how different Kurt looked even after just a few weeks. There were new, lean muscles in his arms and abdomen.

"The dancing is treating you well," Blaine said from his knees, running his tongue up from Kurt's bellybutton to circle a nipple.

"At least I'm getting something out of it," Kurt replied. "I'm not very good yet, especially at ballet."

"You'll get better. It's new." Blaine fixed his mouth right over Kurt's nipple then, and sucked hard.

" _Oh_ ," Kurt arched into Blaine's mouth. "I  _forgot_ how good that feels."

Blaine pulled back, let his eyes drink in Kurt's body. "You're so beautiful," he sighed, his voice breaking.

"Oh, baby," Kurt reached out and tugged him closer. "I'm right here.  _We're_ right here, together."

"I want-" Blaine paused, licked at his lips. Took a deep breath. "I want  _so much_ , but I'm a little scared?"

"Why?" Kurt snaked an arm around Blaine's waist.

"I don't know?" Blaine leaned into Kurt's body, letting the calm relief of actually  _being together_  sort of settle into his muscle and bone. It felt like a whisper of the past, something slightly foreign in this new world. "It's like-" he started, paused, and tried again. "Like I don't know how  _we_ fit, together, when we're living different lives now."

Kurt trailed a gentle finger down the side of Blaine's jaw. "Do you remember our first time?"

Blaine laughed softly. "Of course. There wasn't enough time then, either."

"I'm not talking about  _time_ , silly boy. We were scared then, too. Everything was new. We didn't know what we were doing."

"We have a lot more experience now, though," Blaine said, shaking his head at the memory of those awkward fumblings that first night.

"True. But you're right that we're not the same boys anymore. Think of it like our second first time. We get to learn each other all over again." Kurt smiled, and leaned in to kiss Blaine so gently. "We get to take our time, Blaine, and that's such a good thing because I just want to spend hours doing  _this_." He pushed gently on Blaine's shoulder, moved them both to stretch out on Blaine's bed, and moved his mouth, hot and wet, down the side of Blaine's neck.

" _God_ , that makes me crazy," Blaine muttered, moving against the pressure of Kurt's lips.

"I know," Kurt grinned wickedly. "It's going to get  _so much_ better than that."

* * *

As much as Blaine wanted to push, to take them both to the edge and fall over it time and again, Kurt made them go slow, hours seeping into days and kisses into touches into orgasms wrung from them both with hands and mouths and cocks.

They surfaced at odd times for cobbled-together meals, both of them reluctant to move more than a few feet from each other, and as soon as they were done eating they fell right back into each other to fill each other up, to get  _enough_ to sustain them until Thanksgiving.

Blaine woke on Monday afternoon, the sun slanting in over both of them and Kurt wrapped tightly in his arms. "I love you," he whispered into Kurt's ear. "I love you so much. Thank you for coming to visit."

"Mmm," Kurt stretched. "Love you, too," he whispered sleepily. "How much time do we have?"

"Two hours before your shuttle." Not nearly enough time, anymore.

"Good," Kurt sighed, turning over and pressing a kiss to Blaine's nose. "I want to stay right here as long as I can. Just right here, in your arms."

"Yes, please," Blaine blinked around tears in his eyes, swallowed around the lump in his throat.

"Not goodbye," Kurt said, burying his face into Blaine's chest.

"No," Blaine said, "never goodbye." He tipped Kurt's face up, kissed him through both of their tears. He wanted to savor those last hours, wanted one more chance to lose himself in Kurt's body, let himself be taken.

It felt like minutes, really, in the end, even though Blaine knew that it  _had_ been hours, both of them breathing rough and ragged and seemingly unending tears mixing with sweat and come.

"I love you," Kurt whispered, shuddering against Blaine's body. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

Blaine closed his eyes, giving in to his own release. He felt wrecked, shattered.

Broken, again, and Kurt had to leave.

He  _hated_ having to put himself back together, alone.

"You're not alone," Kurt said, sitting up and peering at the clock before tugging clean clothes out of his backpack. "I'm not leaving you."

"How did you know?" Blaine wrapped his duvet around himself and watched Kurt dress, gather his dirty clothes from where they were scattered all over Blaine's room.

"I know because I love you." He tilted his head and held Blaine's gaze. "I've loved you since that first day on the stairs, and you're so much stronger than that boy was. You have your mom, and Carrie, and you  _always_ have me."

Blaine shook his head. "I forgot what all of this felt like," he said, gesturing to the tangle of blankets, his own naked body. "I forgot what  _you_ felt like."

"I know," Kurt sighed. "I did, too. But I remember, now." He sat on the edge of the bed and worked at tugging his boots on. "I remember what you feel like inside of me and around me, what you sound like when you come. How you taste. Your lips against mine." He blinked, and wiped tears away with the back of his hand. "It'll be okay. We'll  _be_ okay. Six weeks until Thanksgiving. We can do six weeks."

Blaine nodded, because it was true. They'd just done six weeks, and six more wasn't  _so_ long. And then it would only be less than a month until Christmas, the year broken down into these tiny spaces of time apart.

"Will it ever get easier?" Blaine unwrapped himself from his duvet and pulled on the first clothes he grabbed, his wrinkled jeans and hoodie from Thursday.

Kurt shrugged, shouldered his backpack and held his hand out to Blaine. "I guess it has to. I can't decide if we should hope for that or not."

"I don't know, either." Blaine shoved his keys into his pocket, and laughed when Kurt frowned at his bare feet. "I'm not planning on going anywhere, just downstairs and then back up here."

"Such a  _boy_ , and a lazy one at that," Kurt teased, and the giggle that bubbled out of Blaine's mouth felt bittersweet.

"You love me anyway," Blaine said, leading Kurt down, down, down the stairs.

"Always," Kurt whispered softly. "Always."

The shuttle was late, of course, but it gave them a few extra minutes together before they absolutely had to say goodbye. Blaine tried, but the words got stuck in his throat. Kurt didn't say anything, just held Blaine's head with one hand and kissed him hard.

"Don't forget," he said, calling over his shoulder as he walked to the shuttle. "Don't forget, because I won't. Not this time."

"Never," Blaine managed to croak.

He waited on the porch until the shuttle was gone, and then he went back up to his room, alone, to start again.

* * *

**Epilogue: August 2016, Brooklyn, NY**

Blaine scrambled around, frantically stuffing papers into his briefcase. "When did I become a guy with a briefcase?"

"When a backpack screamed  _I'm just out of college_. You want your students to take you seriously." Kurt twisted the top on a travel mug of coffee, and slipped around one of the half-unpacked kitchen boxes to press it into Blaine's hand.

"I can't  _find_ anything in the briefcase." Blaine really wanted to go back to his familar backpack, but Kurt had been so excited when he'd brought the briefcase home, the only purchase he'd made with his employee discount.

"You'll get used to it," Kurt smiled, and kissed Blaine firm on the mouth. "Have a good first day, Mr. Anderson. Are you going to write after work?"

Blaine nodded, snagging his keys and subway pass off the table by the door. "I think I'll go to that little coffeeshop near school. You've got rehearsal late?"

Kurt nodded. "Till 9, I think, but if we get the new songs today then it might be even later. Don't wait up for me?"

"Thai or Indian for dinner?" Blaine hoped Kurt said Indian, because he could almost taste curry and saffron.

Kurt shrugged. "You pick. Either is great.  _Thank_ you, for taking care of me."

"I'll get enough for leftovers, yeah?" Blaine tugged Kurt close for a hug, breathed in the scent of his shampoo.

"What're you doing?" Kurt looked at him quizzically.

"Remembering you," Blaine said with a smile. "Always remembering you."

"Still works, huh?" Kurt leaned against the wall, raked his eyes over Blaine's crisply pressed khakis, dark pink button down, and navy blue tie.

"Every day. You too?" Blaine stared at Kurt, who was rumpled and still a little drowsy, his chest bare and his pajama pants hanging low on his hips.

"Yeah." Kurt kissed him again and then opened the door and pushed him into the hall. "You don't want to be late on the first day."

"You know the best part of leaving for work?" Blaine called as he strode down the hall to the stairs.

Kurt shook his head, arms crossed over his chest. "What?"

"Coming home to you every night."

Kurt blushed, and ran his hand over his face. " _Dork_ ," he said with a little wave.

Blaine just smiled, and moved out into the world, into their city, remembering Kurt.

 


End file.
